


As the Stars Fall: Part II - Atlantis

by flitterflutterfly



Series: As the Stars Fall [2]
Category: Stargate Atlantis, Stargate SG-1
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Mutants, F/F, F/M, M/M, Multi, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-20
Updated: 2013-11-22
Packaged: 2017-11-29 23:08:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 24,177
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/692600
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flitterflutterfly/pseuds/flitterflutterfly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Having escaped to the abandoned city of Atlantis, the mutated Atlanteans must create for themselves a new way of life while combating an enemy whose sick desire is the planet they no longer hold any loyalty to.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The Atlantean Council all stood at the helm of Thor’s ship as it dropped out of hyperspace and into orbit around the water-dominated planet of Lantea.

Rodney took in a shaking breath. He had been on Atlantis before, unlike many of the Atlanteans waiting in the wings, but he had never seen the planet with which the city resided.

“Thor,” Jack said, turning to the Asgard. “We discussed the possibilities and while we can’t make the city rise from space, we would like to wait until it has risen before beaming our people down there.”

“I agree with your decision,” Thor said. “We will continue to orbit the planet and beam down the team you wish to initiate the rising.”

“Rodney and I will be going,” John said.

Rodney felt his back shiver in response to John’s voice. The argument they’d had over who was beaming down hadn’t been a fun one, but Rodney had to go. He was the only one who could set the process in motion in the required time to sustain the city under the least amount of power until it rose.

John had been right, earlier, when he said he was damn possessive. Rodney reminded him that he could take care of himself, but when did John actually listen to him when it came to safety. If Rodney didn’t know better, he’d say John was the guard, not Jack.

His brain pointed out that he liked John’s possessiveness, most of the time. Rodney huffed. “Let’s go,” he said, ready to return to the city that he had dreamed of every night since he’d mutated.

-0o0oOo0o0-

“Jack O’Neill,” Thor said.

Jack looked up from the video feed that the Asgard had rigged, aimed on the blank surface of ocean where Atlantis would, hopefully, soon be. “Yeah, Thor?”

“My crew has discovered schematics of the city of Atlantis in our greater archives,” Thor told him.

Daniel wandered in at that moment, holding in his hands one of the cool new computer datapads that Dr. Zelenka had managed to secure for the Atlanteans. Jack loved the things, they were way easier to use than regular laptops and they had the added benefit of easy connection to Ancient technology.

“Jack,” Daniel said as he reached his side. “Mimir just sent me what looks like some detailed blueprints for the city! This thing has everything on it, labs, power stations, I mean it’s like a virtual tour of the city.”

Jack shared an amused look with Thor. “Yeah, I was informed. I’m kind of curious why the Asgard have it in the first place…”

Thor blinked in the way Jack figured was all calculated innocence. “The Asgard were allies with those you call the Ancients for many thousands of years before they entered into war and we lost contact.”

“You lost contact,” Jack repeated. He took in a breath. “Thor, what can you tell us about the war?” He cursed himself for not thinking of asking earlier.

“We do not know much,” Thor admitted slowly. “My kind had their own difficulties arising at the time of the great Pegasus war. I am sorry, Jack O’Neill.”

Daniel sighed. “That’s understandable.”

“I will have some of our correspondences from the time sent to your files,” Thor said after a moment. “They will be in the language of the time.”

Ancient, he means. Jack was glad that they all seemed to pick up the language pretty quickly, even him. If he asked Carson, the healer would probably site their mutated genes as a reason, but he figured he was better off not knowing the in-depth mumbo jumbo. All that mattered was that they would all be fluent in written Ancient by the end of the month, or at least enough to be able to navigate the database on the city.

Jack nodded once. “Okay, thank you.” He turned to the excited anthropologist. “Daniel, how’s the housing situation looking?”

Daniel flipped his pad around and Jack grabbed it, running an eye over the blueprint image shown. He’d have his guards and John’s warriors closest to the gate room for security purposes, but of course he couldn’t rightfully separate any couples.

“Jack,” Daniel interrupted his thought.

“Hmm?” Jack glanced up and then nearly dropped the datapad as he saw the top of the city crest the ocean water. He knew that throughout the ship the rest of the Atlanteans watched the feed with baited breath and he too couldn’t help but let out a sigh of relief as Atlantis rose to her full glory under the sunlight.

Daniel made a needy sort of noise that touched something in Jack. He wondered, not for the first time, how his lover would have been able to continue to accept the fact he couldn’t go to Atlantis, back when they didn’t know about the mutations and the expedition didn’t look like it would fail.

No use thinking about the past, Jack told himself harshly as he let himself run a hand along Daniel’s shoulder, both of them staring at the city of Atlantis as she sparkled, water cascading off her in falling waves.

“Welcome home, Daniel,” Jack said.

Daniel leaned into him with one of the brightest smiles Jack had ever seen on his face. Jack cleared his throat to keep from saying something stupid in front of Thor and instead let himself smile too.

-0o0oOo0o0-

The room Daniel had assigned to John was pretty big. There was a bathroom he didn’t have to share with any of his men, a separate bedroom with a large, approximately queen-sized bed, and even a front sitting area with a couch and a table area where John had set up his TV and DVD player that he’d manage to pack into Thor’s ship.

Except there were more bags of clothes in the room than was just John’s. He frowned as the door opened.

Rodney stood at the threshold, staring at John in surprise. “What are you doing in my room? Don’t you have to unpack?”

“Your room?” John blinked. “Daniel assigned this room to me.”

Rodney checked his datapad. “Me too.”

John groaned. “He thinks…”

He and Rodney may be progressing, but slow was the name of game. It wasn’t like John had gotten a lot of time in the past month to properly seduce his genius.

“I can leave-” Rodney began, face showing uncertainty and a bit of hurt.

“No!” John protested immediately. “No, it’s okay. I mean, it would have happened eventually, right?”

Rodney’s eyes went shuttered. “Right,” he said.

“I didn’t mean it like that, Rodney,” John cursed himself mentally. “I,” he licked his lips, “I would like to sleep next to you. The bed is certainly big enough,” he added. “And the Ancients sure made comfortable mattresses.”

“Oh,” Rodney smiled, slowly, his cheeks a faint pink. “I would like to sleep next to you too, I think.” He frowned. “As long as you don’t snore.”

John rolled his eyes. “I don’t snore.” He motioned Rodney to actually come in all the way and asked the door to close and lock behind the scientist. He didn’t think he’d ever get tired of the mental component to the technology on Atlantis.

Rodney put his datapad on the table and, with a sort of determined look in his eyes, stepped into John’s space. John put a hand on the man’s hip, thumb stroking the bare amount of skin that poke between the shirt and pants Rodney wore. “You sure you’re okay with this. Moving in together is a pretty big step.”

Rodney kissed him hard on the mouth and John returned the favor. “I’m sure. I can’t imagine anywhere else I would rather be.”

John felt a smile light up on his own place in response. “Okay,” he cleared his throat. “Good.”

-0o0oOo0o0-

If there was one thing that Evan had learned in his meetings with the head council of the Atlanteans, it was that Daniel’s enthusiasm could not be stopped.

“Jack,” Daniel said and his voice made all of them sit up straighter. “We can’t stay in the city forever. We need to make friends, learn more about the threat the Wraith pose, if they even still exist.”

The Wraith. Evan shivered a bit at the concept. From what Daniel had managed to gleam from the Ancient database, they were bug-like creatures with no regard for human life. But that was about all they knew. And, for Evan, that was far from enough.

“I agree with Daniel,” Evan decided to put up. “John, you already said you wanted to make a first contact team.”

“I do,” John said. He held up a hand to stop Jack’s protest. “You need to stay and protect the city, Jack, that is your position. Mine is to serve Atlantis out in the galaxy. You know that.”

Jack sighed. “I do, doesn’t mean I have to like it. Daniel, you’ll be on the team, right?”

“Most of the time,” Daniel said and Evan noticed the sour look Rodney had developed. “Rodney and I will switch off depending on the planet’s situation and how much the city needs us for certain things here.”

“Evan,” John said, nodding his head in Evan’s direction, “as well as my other commanders will be given their own first contact teams.”

“And your cadets?” Jack asked.

“Ford will be on my team,” John told him. “Cadman will be joining Evan.”

“We agreed it was for the best,” Evan said. “Our teams will head out tomorrow, get a hold on the situation in the galaxy. If things look well enough, we’ll send out the rest of the teams.”

“And our policy on the city?” Jack asked.

“The term Atlantean shouldn’t mean anything to the inhabitants of this galaxy, I hope,” Daniel said. “But I think we should exercise extreme caution about bringing people back to Atlantis.”

“Agreed,” John nodded. Evan caught him rubbing a hand over Rodney’s thigh and wisely turned his gaze away.

“Is that all? Some of us have actual work to do,” Rodney snapped.

“I think we’re done,” Jack nodded.

-0o0oOo0o0-

Rodney got dressed for bed like he did most things, as fast as was humanly possible. John was still talking to Evan about their plan of action for their missions tomorrow and Rodney hoped to be asleep before he got back.

The door opened with a hiss as Rodney was pulling back the covers on their bed and his brain sighed. It, too, didn’t want to deal with John at the moment.

“Rodney,” John breathed, coming right up into Rodney’s space. “What’s wrong?”

“Why would something be wrong?” Rodney asked, going for indignant.

“You barely talked at the meeting today and when you did, it wasn’t constructive,” John raised an eyebrow. “Tell me.”

Rodney couldn’t resist those golden-flecked eyes, not back when they’d first decided to try out this  _relationship_  and not now. “We don’t know what’s out there,” he said finally. “And I’m not-”

“I know you want to go with me,” John ran a hand along his side and Rodney leaned into it. “But I can’t risk you, not until we know what we’re up against.”

“So you’re just going to expect me to risk you?” Rodney spat. This was an old argument and one that Rodney hated. “Just because I’m not a warrior doesn’t mean I’m weak.”

“You’re not,” John agreed. “You’re brilliant, Rodney, you and your brain,” his lips quirked, “but I can defend myself in a way that I doubt this galaxy is ready to face. You can’t.”

“I don’t like it,” Rodney said, because it was true and it need to get out there.

“I know you don’t, neither do I,” John agreed mildly.

Rodney leaned in and rested his head on John’s shoulder. “Be safe,” he said, cursing the way his voice threatened to crack. John had never gone off world at SGC like Rodney had. He didn’t know the kind of dangers that they could find.

John’s strong arms wrapped around him. “I will always do what I can to return to you,” he whispered.

That would have to be enough, Rodney thought. Expect, as his brain reminded him, it really wasn’t.

-0o0oOo0o0-

The Atlanteans were one of the strangest of people Teyla had ever met. That they had never seen the Wraith, never experienced their culling would perhaps not surprise her if it were not for the fact that they  _never_  had.

She wished dearly that they could go back to the safety of their previous planet, but when she said thus, their High Commander, as he had introduced himself, went tense.

“Things weren’t all that safe back on our previous planet,” John Sheppard said.

And Teyla had known better than to ask for more than that. What she could tell, however, was that the Atlanteans were an interesting trading possibility and valuable allies to gain.

She told them all she could able the Wraith and their manner of feeding and living. It took effort not to make the words what she would speak to a child, for it was only to children that she had ever given the lecture before.

In exchange, the commander gave her what he called a radio, which seemed to be a communication device, that she could use by dialing the gate address to his current home and pressing the top notch.

“If you or your people are ever in need of help or wish to contact us, use that,” the man said with eyes that seemed multi-colored and a weird expression Teyla could not at the moment place.

“Why?” Teyla asked before she could stop herself.

John Sheppard seemed to hesitate, and then he shared a look with the man, the young man, that he’d introduced as Cadet Aiden Ford. “Let’s just say I like making new friends.”

Teyla felt herself smile and she inclined her head. “The Athosians and I would be happy to be your friend, Commander.”

“Great!” John Sheppard’s smile widened.

Later, once he and his people had gone back through the Ring of the Ancestors, Teyla allowed herself to contemplate the Atlanteans that, by the symbols they’d given her, lived on the legendary planet of the Ancestors, possibly even in the legendary city.

Yes, she thought, she was more than glad that she had made friends with the man that, she dared to hope, could bring about a change from the endless nightmare of a cycle the Wraith inflicted upon her people.

-0o0oOo0o0-

When McKay asked Peter to throw him off the balcony, Peter had been rather confused. Of course, once the glowing green shield had been explained, he’d been more than happy to comply.

The enraged golden-glare of the high commander would haunt his nightmares for months, but at the time all Peter knew was that he was being held against the wall by an abnormal strength.

“No!” McKay had called and soon he’d explained the situation to his lover (and, by God, how stupid had Peter been to do as McKay had asked without first making sure that the man’s soulmate knew about the plan?), Commander Sheppard had calmed and let Peter go.

Things got worse, however, as Sheppard turned to his lover and demanded he take the shield off and McKay couldn’t.

“This is a problem,” Peter said, because he couldn’t help himself.

They were in the infirmary now with Healer Beckett and High Guard Commander O’Neill overlooking the shocked McKay whilst Sheppard paced.

“When was the last time you ate?” Beckett asked McKay.

McKay buried his face in his hands. “Three hours ago.”

Beckett cursed and Peter took a step back because he’d never heard the healer swear. “You’ve maybe got two hours before your hyperglycemia begins to adversely effect your body, Rodney.”

Sheppard growled and Peter jumped again. Jackson entered the room, frowning at the datapad in his hand. “I have an idea,” the man said. He turned to O’Neill. “Jack.”

“Right,” O’Neill nodded. He put his hands over to McKay and Peter watched as the green glow spread and then began to waver. He saw beads of sweat appear on O’Neill’s forehead, and then the shield dropped down, lifeless.

“Oh, thank god,” McKay said.

Peter watched as Sheppard swooped over, running hands over McKay’s body as if to check for injuries.

Peter’s heart panged and he turned away, but not without expecting McKay to push the other man off. Except that he didn’t, he leaned into those hands.

McKay had changed, Peter realized. They all had. He had been late to the game because of his, he swallowed, capture. He was still adjusting, but looking at Sheppard and McKay now he could begin to see why people accepted their mutations so easily.

A strong leadership would do that.

“You okay there, lad?” Beckett asked and it took Peter a minute to realize it was directed to him.

“Fine,” Peter said, and for the first time since this whole mess had started, he realized that he actually meant it. “I’m just fine.”

-0o0oOo0o0-

“I hate the Ancient database,” Daniel griped, just to get it out there.

“We know, space monkey,” Jack said and Daniel glared at him.

“If anyone can figure it out, it’s you,” Evan said.

“You warm my frigid heart, Evan,” Daniel sighed. “Unlike some people.” And honestly, shouldn’t his soulmate be nicer to him?

Jack wiggled his eyebrows.

“Okay, so let’s get this meeting actually started,” John said, brining them all back in. “What’s on our must get list.”

“Power,” Rodney said immediately, like Daniel knew he would. “More specifically, ZedPMs.”

Jack let out a long-suffering sigh that Daniel knew was a byproduct of hearing Rodney’s accent. Daniel kicked him in the shins.

“So far I haven’t found any information about them being stored on Atlantis,” Daniel said. “But that doesn’t mean they didn’t.”

Carson leaned back in his chair. “What about an outpost?”

“What?” Jack turned to the healer.

“Like Antarctica,” Evan said, catching on quickly. “You think maybe they have other facilities in this galaxy?”

“I think that’s likely,” Daniel’s lips quirked into a smile. “I’ll keep looking.”

“Okay then,” John nodded, though Rodney hardly looked happy. “How are things in the infirmary, Carson?”

“Much better than expected,” Carson said. “The devices the Ancients left behind seem to amplify our own powers.”

Rodney blinked. “Amplify?” he scowled, and then snapped his fingers. “Of course, yes that makes sense. The reason all of us have different reactions to different machines, which means, yes, and of course that would-”

“Rodney,” John cut in, saving Daniel the trouble. “Explain in English, if you could.”

Rodney glared at him, but like all glares he aimed at John it had no bite. Daniel found that oddly endearing. “We know the Ancients were our,” he paused, “predecessors with the mutation thing. It stands to reason they too had the power set up we do and the abilities, meaning that they likely developed their technology to match.”

“I thought we already knew that,” Jack pointed out.

“What I’m saying,” Rodney gave him the ‘stop being stupid look’ that Daniel both hated and found amusing with equal viciousness, “is that it has to do with our sectors. Any of us have the ability to fly the puddlejumpers.” Rodney grimaced at the name. He’d voted for gateships, Daniel remembered, but John and Jack had outvoted him. “However, the warriors and guards have the easiest time of it. Even those in that group that have no previous flying experience.”

“So your saying,” Carson said. “That anyone could work the healing devices, but my group would have the best results?”

“Exactly,” Rodney nodded.

“But there are some things that seem neutral,” Daniel pointed out. “The transporters, for one.” And hadn’t that been an amazing discovery. Like elevators, only way cooler and way more efficient.

“Will we be able to sense if some things are oriented one way or another before turning it on?” John directed the question to both Daniel and Rodney.

Jack nodded before either could answer. “If the device in question was more attack oriented, it would make sense for us to know that before some blows up the lab.”

“Believe me,” Rodney rolled his eyes, “it’s a good thing this turning into Ancients things seemed to have affected the slightly more intelligent side of our previous planet, or we would already be dead.”

Daniel smiled. “We can test that out, John,” he said. “It would be useful.”

“Well then,” John inclined his head. “Other things on our must list?”

“David and Katie found a greenhouse-type room with which to plant the seeds we brought with us,” Carson said. “The dears have been getting Xiao Hu to make sure all the produce is safe before Gerald has it made into meals.”

Gerald Baxter, Daniel thought, was blooming under his appointment as head chef for the expedition. While he previous job on Earth had been sitting in a cubicle all day editing online textbooks, he seemed now to feel as though he was truly contributing.

“We still need to trade for more food,” Carson continued. “The rate of production is not enough, not yet.”

“My team found some willing traders on our last mission,” Evan put in. “They have something called tava beans which is apparently a common produce in this galaxy.”

“See what you can do about that, then,” Jack nodded. “Didn’t you check out the mainland continent with Cadet Ford, John?”

“We did,” John said. “It looks livable, if a bit wild. If needed, we could camp out there.”

If needed, Daniel thought. The amounts of worlds that were devastated by the Wraith and their sick cullings was both massive and disturbing. Daniel thought the Ori had been bad, this, though, this was beyond anything he’d ever imagined when he’d first stepped through the Stargate. And they still hadn’t met any Wraith face-to-face. How much worse would his nightmares get when they did?

“Hopefully it won’t be,” Jack said, echoing Daniel’s thoughts.

“There’s always hope, isn’t there?” Rodney said, but his voice was less angry and more melancholic.

Daniel sighed.

-0o0oOo0o0-

When the gate dialed-in, Chuck hadn’t thought twice about putting up the shield. At least, until he heard the voice on the other end, recognizing the Athosian’s leader’s name by the report High Commander Sheppard had written.

As if called, the high commander was by him in a second, telling him to lower the shield as he raced to the gate, already being followed by two teams of warriors.

Chuck’s admiration for the Athosian, Teyla, rose as she refused to come through until all of her people were safe.

But as the gate shut down behind the Atlanteans, Chuck could not help but hate the uncomfortable silence.

Waiting was always the worst.

It took what seemed hours for the gate the dial-in again, reading the high commander’s IDC. Chuck let the shield down before Head Constructor McKay could command it and held his breath as Athosians piled through, mixed with several hardened Atlanteans.

The healers were on them in an instance, ushering them out of the gateroom. Commander Sheppard came through last, Teyla by his side, and Chuck breathed out at the safety of his people.

It wasn’t until Sheppard had finished debriefing the council when Chuck realized why his heart was still pounding and his breathing still short.

“Chuck,” Sheppard looked at him with something akin to desperation. “The Wraith, they took several of the Athosians and our men with them.”

“Are you going back out, sir?” Chuck asked, voice soft.

“Yes,” Sheppard said, but Chuck could tell that wasn’t all of it. The commander took a steadying breath and Chuck nearly ran before whatever it was that caused the golden-flashing in his eyes could be said. “They took Commander Dorsey.”

“Mike,” Chuck whispered and then he was stumbling back into his chair.

“Chuck,” Sheppard forced their eyes to meet. “I will get him back. I will return him to you.”

Chuck could only nod and hope and pray and trust in his leaders as Sheppard took two puddlejumpers through the gate.

“John will rescue them,” McKay said from somewhere behind him.

Chuck ignored the wavering in the other man’s voice, if only because it said that McKay was just as scared for his soulmate as Chuck was for his.

He’d trusted Mike enough to come to Atlantis with him. He’d trusted him enough to accept Jackson’s assignment to a single room with him. He’d trusted Mike enough to sleep curled up in his arms.

He hadn’t trusted him enough to tell him what he truly felt, though, and at the moment that was all that Chuck cared about. To have fallen into a relationship so quickly and because of a quirk of genes, surely Chuck wasn’t yet obligated to speak the words of his heart?

Except, as Chuck waited, he imagined what he would do if Mike didn’t make it back. If he died without knowing the depth of Chuck’s feelings.

“How can you stand it?” he asked McKay.

McKay’s bright blue eyes closed shut. “I don’t know,” he said. The honesty in his voice was raw.

Chuck turned to stare back at the gate. Yeah, he thought. Neither do I.

-0o0oOo0o0-

Parker had been four when his older brother told him about the monsters under his bed, in his closet, behind the shower curtain.

He’d long since grown out of needing a nightlight, but he remembered lying awake at night and fearing those things that go bump in the night.

This creature was nothing like what he’d imagined for himself as a kid. This thing, long red hair and pointed teeth with eyes like a velociraptor, was a nightmare in the purest sense of the word.

Parker was only glad that he was the first to be questioned. He couldn’t imagine one of the frightened Athosians trying to look this thing in the face and tell it that it was a monster.

Except, all he’d gotten was a cruel laugh and the sudden reminder that the Athosians had faced the knowledge of these creature all their life. While his mother held him and told him there was no monsters to get him, the Athosian children were instructed to run and run fast.

“You have an interesting mind, human,” the creature said in a sort of hissing speech.

No, Parker thought. I will not give into your tricks. I will not tell you anything.

The Wraith, for that was what it was, laughed again. Parker felt sweat drip down his face. They were just like the bigots of Earth, Parker told himself. Those who chased him out of his own home because of things beyond his control. They were bullies with claws instead of pitchforks, but bullies none-the-less.

“Earth?” The Wraith tilted its head.

No, Parker thought desperately. He may no longer be a Tau’ri, but he would not give away information on his former planet to the thing that had already sucked years off his life.

He would not betray those that had tried to help, even in the face of those that had celebrated the deaths of others like him.

“Where is Earth?” The Wraith demanded.

Parker shook his head and tried desperately to think of anything other than the lengths they’d travelled. Thought of Dusty Mehra and her rejection of him to have dinner together, of how he wished he could have just gotten just one night with her, even if they weren’t soulmates.

“Tell me of Earth!” The Wraith was not happy, Parker thought distantly as it because to feed again on his weakened body.

His eyes caught sight of his commander hiding in the shadows and he smiled. “Ne-never,” he croaked.

The end was near, he thought, and welcomed the darkness as the flash of blue clashing with red caught the edge of his vision.

-0o0oOo0o0-

“Parker is dead,” Carson said.

Jack felt the loss like a pang in his chest. He wondered if it was an effect of his position, or of the fact that Parker was the first they’d lost while on Atlantis. “How?” he asked.

“Systems shut down,” Carson explained with haunted eyes. “He lost,” he paused, “years off his life and his body, in the end, couldn’t handle it. If I knew how to treat that kind of stress…”

“You couldn’t know,” Daniel said. “None of us knew.”

“But we did,” John snapped. “The Athosians, hell, all of the worlds we have visited told us what the Wraith can do.”

Rodney glared down at his datapad. “Had to see it to believe it,” he muttered.

Jack couldn’t agree more. If he hadn’t seen Parker’s once-youthful face now wrinkled, now dead, he wouldn’t have been able to ever assimilate the knowledge that the Wraith literally drained the life out of their victims.

“I should have killed her, the queen,” John said.

“No,” Jack said. “You made a choice, and bringing Parker back here, even if he didn’t make it,” he paused to gather himself. “That was the right choice.”

Daniel cleared his throat. “From what we’ve been able to learn from the Wraith and what the Athosian’s have been telling me, the frequency of cullings is directly proportional to the food supply. They know of Earth and the numbers on it, now,” Daniel explained.

John closed his eyes. “How many are going to awaken?”

“I don’t know,” Daniel admitted. “I found some readings that suggest the Wraith had factions, they weren’t as united as they seemed in their war against the previous inhabitants of this city.”

“A common enemy united them,” Evan noted.

“Exactly,” Daniel nodded. “Now, though, I wonder if perhaps the queen will only wake those of her own faction, so as to have the feeding to themselves.”

“But we can’t know that for sure,” Jack said.

“No,” Daniel admitted. “We can’t.”

“What are we going to do about the Athosians?” Carson asked.

“They aren’t comfortable in the city,” Daniel said. “But they feel that they cannot leave the safety of Atlantis’ walls. Not with so many of their population gone.”

“Then send them to the mainland,” Rodney said a bit callously.

John blinked. “That’s actually a good idea.”

Rodney looked up. “It is?”

Daniel nodded. “I agree. They’ll be protected there, but have the opportunity to farm and hunt. They have already agreed to guide us through trading procedures in this galaxy.”

“That’s settled then,” Jack said. “I think we’re all in need of some rest.”

The rest of the council nodded. Jack grabbed Daniel by the wrist, ready to drag his lover to bed, but Daniel was already a step ahead of him, yawning widely. Jack took comfort in the familiarity of his soulmate, letting himself forget, if only for a moment, the loss of one of the Atlanteans to a virtual nightmare.

-0o0oOo0o0-

Mike stood at the door to his room and took in a steadying breath. It was late and Chuck was probably already asleep, but Beckett had finally let him out of infirmary and he wanted nothing more than to sleep next to his soulmate.

The door opened and there Chuck stood, dressed in one of Mike’s shirts and his own geekly-patterned boxers. “Are you going to stand there all night?” he asked.

Mike chuckled and stepped in. Once inside, however, silence spread over them.

“Mike-” Chuck began in the same time Mike said, “Babe-”

Mike sighed. “You first.”

Chuck licked his lips and Mike found his eyes following that pink tongue. Then the smaller man was wrapping him into a tight embrace and Mike had no choice but to go with it. “Will you do something for me?” Chuck asked.

“Anything,” Mike breathed, because yeah, it was true. That warm brown gaze had caught him and held him and there wasn’t a single thing he wouldn’t do to get rid of the shadows under his soulmate’s eyes.

“Fuck me,” Chuck said and Mike nodded, hands roughly pulling at the shirt covering his once-Canadian technician’s body.

Chuck didn’t protest the rough treatment, he never had, had even begged for it in the beginning when Mike went too gentle, too slow, for fear of scaring off the man. Of course, Chuck had far more experience that he did, as Mike had soon learned.

Their bodies came together and separated, needy and desperate.

“I love you,” Chuck gasped as he came. Mike buried his face in the crook of his lover’s neck as he felt his orgasm wash over him like burning coals.

Then they lay together, sheets tangled. Chuck’s hands began to stroke his bare back. “I love you,” he repeated.

“Babe, is this cause,” Mike began to ask, because if it was…

“You could have died,” Chuck’s tone made Mike lift up his head. “And you didn’t know. But it’s true, Mike, it’s so true.”

Mike cut off the rest of the confession with a brutal kiss. “I don’t know much about love,” he admitted. “But I’ll try, Chuck, babe, because I do know that you’re all I need. Just you like this is enough incentive for me to always come back. Okay, you hear, I will always come back.”

“You can’t promise that,” Chuck gasped, but the shadows were receding.

Mike didn’t say anything, because he couldn’t, not really. But he could at least show his feelings through his body. Try to convince his lover again and again what he meant to him. Try to convince himself that he would be able to come back to those warm eyes that pulled him in like a honey trap and that he hoped would never let him go.

-0o0oOo0o0-

Aiden knew something was off with the Genii the minute they met Tyrus and Sora, but Teyla was there to guide them through trade and McKay griped like normal.

At least, until the trading started and they discovered the Genii’s unhealthy interest in weapons like C-4 and Commander Sheppard called for some more of their people to come.

Alison Porter was a good choice. Her ability to tell when people were lying was useful in trade situations, especially one’s that seemed as strange as this one. And, with Alison there, of course Commander Anne Teldy and Warrior Alicia Vega came. Aiden knew that he hated when Sammie went on missions without him.

Sammie’s safety always made him a little more primal than he had to be. His doubleganger, stirring inside him, pushed at those times, wanting to come free.

Now, though, he kept his other self in. Sheppard would be angry if he gave up the game too quickly.

Then, of course, McKay went missing and they were all taken down to the underground chamber the genius had discovered and things went haywire.

-0o0oOo0o0-

Alicia was a good soldier, she’d always believed that about herself, and she knew better than to leave a man down in the hands of the enemy if she could help it. So when Tyrus shot the man in the web and the Wraith came coming, she hid and waited for her chance.

In the end, she brought back a body. But a body, she thought faintly, an old wrinkled body, was better than nothing.

The jumper landed and Alicia followed her high commander out, her two soulmates by her side.

She spotted the Genii hiding in the woods and jerked to a stop. “Sir,” she said.

“I know,” Sheppard said. “Call your men off, Cowen.”

Teyla looked startled, but Cowen smirked. “This device is the Genii’s by right,” he said, holding up the wonky looking data storage thing. Alicia knew something had been fishy about this mission, but really did Cowen think that his ego was going to save him from the Atlantean’s wrath?

The other Genii soldiers were approaching and Sora was the first up. She stared in horror down at the body of her father and for a moment Alicia felt for the girl. “He died a noble death,” she told her. “Diverting the Wraith.”

Teyla had stiffened, but said nothing more. Alicia was glad. Sora didn’t seem to register either of them, though, as her shaking hands picked up a gun.

“Okay, that’s enough,” Sheppard said. “Commander Teldy, if you would.”

Alicia felt a shiver of something not quite fear as her soulmate raised her hand, calling forth all the Genii guns to hover in the air. She smirked as the soldiers suddenly went white and scared, disbelieving of the power they had just witnessed.

“You do not want to make an enemy of the Genii, Commander Sheppard,” Cowen warned.

Alicia resisted the urge to laugh. Who did this man think he was? She could almost admire his stupidity in the face of power he couldn’t understand.

Did she say admire? She meant pity.

“I could say the same about the us, Cowen,” Sheppard growled, iris flashing gold. Alicia’s enhanced eyes could make out as the tips of his fingers grew blue as they grabbed the Wraith device from the shaking man’s hands.

Alicia had never liked her high commander more than in that moment.

-0o0oOo0o0-

The thing that latched onto his neck was quite possibly the creepiest bug he’d ever seen in his life, John thought.

The Wraith grunt stopped in front of him just as John lost the last feeling he’d had in his legs and he met the masked creature’s gaze squarely. He would stare into the face of his death.

The Wraith shook it’s head, seeming almost amused as it turned and walked away.

It took John too long to realize why. The bug was draining his strength beyond what he was comfortable with, what he would even have been comfortable with when he was a normal human.

There was just one more thing he could try, he thought, except he didn’t know what he would do if it didn’t work.

“Stop being a coward,” John told himself aloud and made to shift into his other form.

The change came over him far too slowly, his skin rippling blue in the way he still wasn’t used to. He felt a wall of something blocking him, but he pushed past it, using all that was left of his strength to bring the change over all of his body, feel his fingernails length and his teeth sharpen.

And then he was done, disoriented as he realized suddenly that his neck no longer hurt. He looked around for the bug creature and saw that it had detached itself and scuttled back to its large web.

John felt the urge to kill it, except that his instincts, heightened in this form, said there was no need. The bug make clacking sounds and John realized with a gulp that it was communication, that he could understand its message.

It apologized for hurting a brethren, it hope that John would not seek retribution on its clan.

John stood shakily and, not knowing how else to respond, shook his head.

The creature thanked him as he walked way and John fought to keep his breath. He kept his other form on, wary of the Wraith that still littered the planet, and only shed it when he knew the jumper would soon be in sight. Of his team, only Ford had seen his other form and he wanted to keep it that was for as long as he could.

“Are you okay, High Commander?” Ford asked as John approached, his gun at the ready by the open door to the jumper.

“I will be,” John said. “Let’s get out of here.”

The Wraith darts were waiting for them around the gate, but Stackhouse and Markham’s shock wave thing was one of the coolest powers John had seen yet and they were able to integrate with the jumper’s weapon’s system and amplify the power of the drones.

“Rodney’s going to kill you,” Daniel said mildly as he patched up the wound on John’s neck.

“I know,” John said. “What was it?” He’d already explained all he could about the bug-exchange with the anthropologist. In the number of missions they’d gone on together, Daniel had become a valued member of his team. He was only glad that Jack trusted him enough to let Daniel and Rodney switch off, Rodney was a genius but his lack of tact, which did endear John more than he thought it would, was not the best for negotiations with people of a more simple way of life.

“I found some references,” Daniel sighed. “I think they called it an Iratus bug. They are supposedly fatal feeders, not letting go until their prey is dead.”

“Carson might kill me first then,” John said. “I hate tests.”

Daniel laughed. “Don’t we all?”

John grinned as they made it through the gate safely. From the pilot’s seat, Ford waved at the command staff and took the jumper up to the bay. John would have to remember to compliment him on his flying.

If he survived both the doctors that glared at him angrily. John scratched the back of his head and let himself be taken away to the infirmary, rubbing a hand over Rodney’s shoulder as he passed.

-0o0oOo0o0-

“Why don’t you take a break,” Marie said softly as Carson fumbled again with the healing device he’d been studying.

Carson swiped at his eyes. “If I can just get this-”

“Carson,” Marie said more firmly. “Stop. Just stop.”

Carson saw then how badly his hands were shaking and with a choked sigh sat down heavily. “Sorry to worry you, lass.”

“What happened to the Hoffans wasn’t your fault,” Marie said, getting to the problem immediately. Carson had always admired that about her, but not now.

He thought of Perna’s face as she took her last breath and pushed down the wave of sadness that he was sure that was the reason Adams had asked for a day off. The poor boy’s empathy probably sucked it all in like a vacuum.

“If I had insisted on more tests,” Carson began.

“They would have never listened to you and you know it,” Marie told him firmly. “You did the right thing by adding the modifier before they took the prototype to mass production.”

The modifier, Carson thought. All the Hoffans had a unique gene, one he suspected was a leftover from previous genetic testing that had spread throughout their culture. He’d made the Hoffan drug useable by only their people. It had been the easiest thing to do with the prototype because it would latch onto their Hoffan test subjects, but one that he’d planned on fixing in later tests of the drug.

Except there had been no later tests, the Hoffan council had taken the only success they had as leeway to spread it to their entire society.

“They committed genocide,” Carson said. “Half their population, lass, half of them are dead.”

“But they will not be able to spread their supposed cure to the rest of Pegasus,” Marie said with just a touch of retribution in her voice. “It will be their curse to bear alone.”

“At least there’s that,” Carson buried his face in his hands. “Thank you, Marie.”

Marie touched his arm gently. “Stop beating yourself up for the mistakes of others,” she smiled, “we need our head healer.”

Carson matched the smile faintly. “I’ll try, love. I’ll try.”

-0o0oOo0o0-

A fucking hurricane, Jack thought. Not only did they have space vampires after their life force, they have to deal with the weather too?

Jack set down his computer pad a little harder than necessary and rubbed his face tiredly. At least Evan had managed to secure a secondary alpha site for them after their first had burned from a freak forest fire. Mother nature just wasn’t happy with the Atlanteans, it seemed.

“Sir,” Elliot Rutherford said at the door to Jack’s office.

“Yes, Guard Commander?” Jack asked, dreading Elliot’s answer. After the stint with their sudden need to escape from the complex back on Earth, he’d make sure to never doubt the man’s word again, but that didn’t mean he wanted to hear it.

“I have a bad feeling about the coming storm,” Elliot said. “Nothing concrete, sir, but it’s not just the weather that is going to be a problem.”

Jack cursed under his breath. “Hold on,” he said and clicked his radio. “Morrison, I need you in my office.”

He heard the affirmative from his only other guard commander and motioned for Elliot to sit down while they waited for Rudolph. It took barely five minutes for the man to arrive and his attire showed that he’d been at the gym.

“We got a bit of a situation,” Jack said and gestured for Elliot to continue.

“I think,” Elliot huffed out a harsh breath. “Frankly, my premonitions aren’t all that useful usually, but this one is being especially vague. All I really know is that something is going to happen on the city when the hurricane hits.”

“Well, fuck,” Rudolph said.

“My thoughts exactly,” Jack nodded. “I know you were originally going to stay, Rudolph, but I still think I might be the better choice.”

“I don’t like having three of our four leaders on the city during this storm, Jack,” Elliot said, taking Jack’s clue to drop the formalities.

While Jack was the top of the guard hierarchy, Rudolph and Elliot were just below him and they were both also old friends. In times where it was just the three of them, Jack preferred their honesty.

“Lorne and Daniel will both be with Beckett and the rest of our people in the temp camp,” Jack said. “They are more than capable of-”

“With all due respect,” Rudolph cut in. “I don’t want to assume that’s going to happen. I know you feel like you should stay so that you could help the shield around the city, but we can’t risk you trying to do it all on your own. Beckett warned against overtaxing our powers like that. Besides, McKay is sure that his lightning plan is going to work, isn’t he?”

“McKay is sure that all his plans will work,” Jack snarked, ignoring the fact that, thus far, they all had. “I am in a better position to help the team that’s staying. Kemp and Bale will be there and no way in hell will Shep let McKay stay if he doesn’t as well. I’d rather be there to protect them should they need it.”

Rudolph and Elliot exchanged a glance and several sighs. “Frankly, Jack, I’m surprised you’d rather be on the storm-ridden city then with Jackson,” Elliot said almost coyly.

“Don’t go there,” Jack pointed a finger at him. “You’re not going to convince me otherwise, no matter how much I’m going to hate myself for it later.” Then he fixed them both with a glare. “Though, you know that if anything happen to Daniel, or any of the Atlanteans, on the alpha site then it’ll be on your asses.”

“We know, Jack,” Rudolph had the nerve to roll his eyes.

“Dismissed, you bastards,” Jack growled.

Rudolph laughed and left with a, “Just get me the video feed when you tell Jackson the news, will you?”

Elliot stood as if to leave as well, but didn’t actually start walking. “You’d better be alert,” he said seriously. “I don’t know exactly what the threat is, Jack, but it’s no idle one.”

“I’ll watch my back, and the rest of the team while I’m at it,” Jack said. At Elliot’s steely look he sighed. “I’ll be fine.”

He hoped, as Elliot saluted and left, that he could be sure of his own words.


	2. Chapter 2

Sora took in a deep breath, muscles flexing under her makeshift dress, her costume. There’d been no other course of action, she reminded herself as she oversaw the strike force in their last minutes of preparation. They’d been left with no choice.

The Atlanteans had gotten her father killed.

“You are prepared for this, Sora?” Koyla asked her in a low voice, one hand gripping her hard on her shoulder.

“Of course,” Sora told him, her voice as strong as her eyes.

Her resolve was another question; one that she pushed aside. There was no time for doubt. The Atlanteans were new to the galaxy, and far too curious. Far too powerful.

She only hoped that they would be able to overpower the few that would be on the great city of the Ancestors.

Sora straightened her shoulders and clutched the radio as Koyla dialed the gate. Now was the time to act, and act she would. This was what she was trained for, what she was born to do.

This was for her father.

-0o0oOo0o0-

“Bacon,” Dawkins said.

“Bacon?” Bale snorted. “The thing you miss most is bacon?”

“Well,” Dawkins ducked his head. “I’d been estranged from my family for a while and all of my friends…” he held up his hands, his nails extending into claws briefly before they merged back down. “Not even as cool as Wolverine cause I can’t heal myself.”

The joke fell flat between them, their memories surging up in response to the thought of Earth and the circumstances that had brought them to Atlantis.

“Yeah,” Bale nodded. “Yeah,” he repeated because there wasn’t really anything else to say to that.

The gate flashed suddenly and both protectors were on guard. Bale gathered up his mental energy and sent out a wave of communication to those on the city telling them there was unscheduled off-world activation. His mental telepathy was what make him a guard, but it was unfortunately only one way so the leaders had to rely on the radios to respond.

“Who is it?” Guard Commander O’Neill asked tersely.

“One of the Athosians, sir,” Dawkins said as he read from the computer screen. “Hold on, there’s radio contact.”

“Please, help!” a female called. “We have injured.”

“I’m on my way,” O’Neill said. “John, Rodney?”

“Just finishing up with my ground station,” Bale heard Rodney say as Dawkins let down the gate and the Athosians began to walk through.

Except Bale knew all the Athosians and he recognized none of the men and women who were here now.

Bale tried to warn Dawkins who was already running down to help, but his communication came a second too late as the gunshot went off. He raised his own weapon, but knew as he saw the enemy’s arm move that he didn’t have a chance of getting a shot of his own off.

With the seconds of time he had left, Bale sent out a blast of energy, connecting with the three Atlanteans left on the city, three of his people’s high council, giving them a warning of the strike force’s numbers and firepower.

And then a force hit him in the chest and the darkness overtook him.

-0o0oOo0o0-

“Rodney,” John’s voice was a steady hum to Rodney’s sudden panic and he took a deep breath.

“You need to do the last station, John,” Rodney said quickly, quietly. He wasn’t far from the central tower and he knew that he was no match for any of the Genii. His brain sent worry about the coming storm. “Jack, where are you?”

“Here,” Jack called, and it wasn’t over the radio. Rodney’s shoulders slumped slightly in relief as he saw the guard commander coming down the hall towards him.

“I don’t-” John began.

“Do it, John,” Jack said. “We’re going to let ourselves be captured to give you time.”

There was silence as Jack finally reached Rodney’s side. Rodney shifted on his feet until finally John came back on. “How fast can you shield?”

“Fast enough,” Jack answered. “As long as I’m within sight of Rodney, I can shield him and myself.”

There was a sigh. “I’m nearing the last station. Radio silence, but try to keep it on as long as you can. I’ll take care of any scouts that spread out.”

“Good,” Jack said.

“John,” Rodney added before his soulmate could cut them off. “Just…” his brain mentally snorted and he quickly changed what he was about to say, “I’ll see you later.”

“Later,” John said, and in his words was a promise.

Not too long later, Rodney and Jack were standing in front of a scarred man who had introduced himself as Acastus Koyla.

“Sir, we’ve lost contact with teams three and four,” the young female Rodney remembered as Sora said.

Rodney’s brain quickly calculated it out and figured that John must have used some sort of extra speed to be able to both finish up the last grounding station and take out two teams. Then again, Rodney had yet to learn what his soulmate’s mutation was, so that was entirely possible.

“Who else is here?” Koyla asked, hard-eyed as he pointed his gun towards Rodney’s chest. He’d already learned that Jack cared little about his own safety, though of course he didn’t know of Jack’s ability. Not yet.

Jack seemed to deliberate for a moment and then shrugged. “High Commander John Sheppard, leader of the Atlantean Warriors.”

“And here I thought you were the High Commander,” Koyla said.

Rodney thought that perhaps the man considered this his advantage, two adversaries among his enemies that competed against one another.

“Yeah, well, I’m a guard,” Jack grinned.

Koyla snarled and grabbed a radio.

“Commander Sheppard,” Koyla began in that nasty voice that Rodney knew would echo in his nightmares. “This is Koyla of the Genii. I know you can hear me, do not bother to deny your presence.”

“That’s High Commander, Koyla, get it right,” John snarked back and Rodney’s lips twitched because of course John would never give an inch.

“I have in my possession two of your men,” Koyla said, ignoring the gripe.

“You can’t possess people,” John countered. “You’re merely keeping them company.”

“And what kind of company would you have me keep? I am afraid I find myself in a  _rough_ sort of mood,” Koyla growled. “You will surrender yourself here, or find Rodney McKay bleeding at my feet.”

Rodney resisted the urge to roll his eyes. Of course the man would target him first. He wondered if that was because of the information Koyla may have gathered from his run in with Cowen and John’s subsequent protectiveness then, or if it was because Rodney seemed more susceptible than Jack.

Honestly, he would have found Koyla far more frightening had he not been confident in Jack’s ability to shield them. And in John’s ability to decimate the remaining Genii while Jack did.

As if his thoughts had summoned him into action, Rodney saw as Sora paled, still holding the radio to her face.

“ _What is that thing_?” Rodney heard faintly, along with gunshots. “ _Get awa-_ ” “ _By the Ancestors, it looks like a W-”_

“Sir,” Sora said as the last scream died off. “We’ve lost contact with all of our men in the city.”

Koyla practically snarled into the radio and Rodney saw some of the man’s careful calm slip into something far more dangerous. “I warned you, Sheppard,” Koyla yelled. “Now say goodbye to McKay.”

Even knowing that Jack was right behind him, Rodney felt his heart stop as the gunshot rang loud in front of him. He wasn’t even conscious of closing his eyes, until he opened them again and saw the soft shimmer of Jack’s shield around him and, past that, Koyla shocked rage.

“How?” the Genii commander began, but then someone screamed, far too loud to be over the radio, and a flash of blue caught Rodney’s vision.

His first thought was Wraith, but his brain shook him and murmured at him and Rodney’s shoulders relaxed because it was  _John_.

Sora went down before she could even reach her gun, the rest of the Genii already on the floor and even Rodney’s brain was having trouble processing it all, until he looked over and saw Koyla and John facing off.

John flicked golden eyes in Rodney’s direction and Rodney’s hand twitched because he wanted to reach forward, to touch his soulmate, but John was already looking back. He didn’t talk, didn’t say anything in the face of Koyla’s anger and his fright.

It wasn’t until Koyla fired, twice, that he even moved, long nails slicing off the Genii’s neck in a quick move of execution. Koyla’s head rolled on the floor, stopping just outside of the shield around Rodney, which wavered and collapsed. Rodney took a step back from the blood already beginning to pool at his feet.

“Is that all of them?” Jack asked, calm in the face of John’s form as it slowly rippled and changed back to what Rodney was used to.

“Yes,” John nodded. “I think so.”

“I’ll check the life-signs detector, just in case,” Jack offered, moving away from them.

Rodney stepped forward and John looked at him with those gold-flecked eyes. Now Rodney saw an image juxtaposed in them and his heart beat just a bit faster. In all that he had imagined John’s mutation to be, that was not it.

“Rodney,” John said. He took a step forward, and then stopped. “I should clean this up.”

Rodney opened his mouth to say something, what he didn’t know, but by the set of John’s shoulders he wasn’t sure that he would get anywhere and he wasn’t even sure he wanted to.

His brain was going through the memories, recording everything of John’s mutation that it could. It wasn’t what Rodney had expected, yeah, but it was so John that he couldn’t help but think of anything else that it could be, not in hindsight.

One thing that it told him, however, was something Rodney had been struggling with for a while. It was irrational, as his brain liked to tell him, but Rodney couldn’t help but think that their mutations said something about them as people.

Rodney had been holding back, unable to really let go of that last barrier on his heart until he knew, really knew what John could do. What and who he was.

And now he knew. John was beautiful in the deadliest of ways. Strong, a fighter, a warrior, exotic and quick as lightning with eyes that reflected his soul.

Yeah, Rodney thought, he knew he could fall fast for this John, the John he now knew completely.

Looking over at his soulmate, his lover, carefully stacking bodies up with a sort of mournful necessity, Rodney let out a deep breath and did.

-0o0oOo0o0-

John’s skin was red by the time he stopped scrubbing his hands in the bathroom sink. He opened and closed his fingers, watching the red fade. Part of him began to wonder if red was any better of a color than blue.

“John.”

He flinched and turned his eyes in the mirror to see Rodney standing in the bathroom doorway. “Hey,” he said softly.

Rodney stepped forward. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” John straightened, curling his fingers in. “Are you doing okay?”

“Am I?” Rodney raised an eyebrow. “I’m not the one who was kicking ass.”

John couldn’t stop his wince. He saw in Rodney’s eyes as his soulmate noticed. “I never meant for you to see that.”

“What?” Rodney took the last couple of steps to his side and lay a cool hand on John’s bare arm. “See you save this city? See you rightfully kill the man who would have felt no guilt over taking your life, or the lives of any of our people?”

“I’m not,” John cleared his throat. It was just Koyla, he thought, if it had been just Koyla… but there had also been that girl, Sora, and the countless others that were just doing their jobs. That had become casualties of a mad man’s desire to take the city that wasn’t his. “You don’t mind?”

Rodney sighed. “I may not be a soldier, Sheppard, but I’m hardly going to run away from seeing you do your duty to Atlantis.”

John frowned. “You…”

“I love you,” Rodney said and that stopped John in his tracks. “All of you.”

“And I you,” John said, turning now to draw his blue-eyed constructor into his arms. “You and your brain.”

“See,” Rodney’s mouth slanted in that crooked grin of his. “You get to deal with two bitchy soulmates. I just get a man with a slight connection to bug-like creatures and a willingness to do what’s necessary even if what’s necessary isn’t the easier thing to do.”

“Who knew you were such a romantic,” John teased lightly.

Rodney snorted. “Hardly. I’m a scientist and scientists always tell the truth.”

“I see,” John followed his desires and leaned down to kiss those willing lips.

Rodney pulled back, causing another frown to appear over John’s face. His soulmate shook his head and clasped their hands together. “Come to bed.”

John allowed himself to be pulled. “Rodney?”

Rodney turned back and gave John a smile that took his breath away. “I want you to fuck me.”

“No,” John said immediately.

“Yes,” Rodney turned back to face him and John took the opportunity to crowd himself close.

“No, Rodney,” John told him gently. “I won’t fuck you. What I will do to you can’t be called fucking.”

“Oh,” Rodney’s throat worked. “Make love to me?”

“Always,” John promised.

And yeah, maybe he had imagined Rodney’s first time to be a bit more romantic. But then again, as he lay his soulmate out on the bed, John realized that there wasn’t any need for candles or rose petals or a soft tune in the background. Rodney’s blue eyes and his soft cries were enough to make the night perfect.

-0o0oOo0o0-

“They’re children!” Daniel reminded them all.

“Children with a ZedPM,” Rodney said. “A nearly depleted ZedPM, I might add.”

“Careful McKay, almost sounds like you care,” Jack said, the bite in his words taken out only by the fact that it diffused the mounting tension in the room.

Daniel slapped his hand on the table, bringing the council back to focus on him. The images of the young children of the latest planet his team had visit flashed through his mind on loop. “This galaxy is fucked up, the Wraith are fucked up, and I do not want to make a home for ourselves in a place where we leave  _children_  to fend for themselves with protection that won’t last through the end of our lifetimes.”

There was stunned silence for several moments and Daniel felt a blush creeping up his face, but he pushed it down with added intensity to his glare.

Evan cleared his throat. “You know, the Athosians seem to be happy on the mainland, and it’s not too much trouble to ferry them around in the puddlejumpers when they want to go trade. We’re going to need more power before we go trying to save everyone in the galaxy, but Teyla would probably agree to housing more refugees.”

“Frankly, this galaxy has been under the threat of the Wraith so damn long that they’ve become compliant,” John said slowly. “We need power, we need more weapons because we’re in limited supply of ammo and drones, but once we have that… I’m ready to start building an army.”

“Isn’t that a little fast?” Rodney looked stunned. “John…”

Daniel leaned back in his chair. “For now, it is,” he said before John could answer. “Because we do still need power. I’ve been working through the Ancient database, there are several outposts we can look at in this galaxy for drones and possibly ZPMs, but I don’t know if that will be enough. Will ever be enough.”

Carson sighed. “There is one more possibility,” he said slowly. “I’ve been working on a retrovirus…”

“Biological warfare,” Jack shook his head. “I don’t like it, Carson, but it might be our best shot at winning this.”

“It’s no where near ready, not even close, mind you,” Carson amended quickly. “But it’s a thought.”

“And until then, we can try and help all we can. We are already making a name for ourselves in this galaxy,” Daniel said.

“We’re going to have to screen anyone who wants to make a home on the mainland,” Evan said. “But I don’t like sitting here on our asses when we’ve got the power to help.”

“Exactly,” Daniel nodded. He breathed a little easier as he saw the faces of his fellow high councilmen… from Rodney’s determination to do whatever he could to make the Atlanteans safe, using any technological knowledge he had, to Carson’s bleeding heart, to John’s steely glare, Evan’s clenched fists, and Jack’s set shoulders.

They were united on this issue and united they would prepare as much as they could for the inevitable fight.

-0o0oOo0o0-

“Just a simple cold,” Carson said.

“I wanted to make sure,” Alison blushed. “It is Atlantis.”

“You don’t need to explain yourself to me lass,” Carson smiled at her. “I’d rather check than have it turn out to be somethin’ after all.”

“Exactly,” Alison nodded, breathing in deeply as Carson put away the scanner, murmuring something about reassuring her soulmates. “I didn’t tell… I didn’t want them to worry.”

Carson turned kind eyes on her. “Everything that we discuss is confidential. Even if they are your medical proxies, they will not be informed of anything by myself unless you are incapable of making decisions.”

“Right,” Alison bit her bottom lip and wondered if she should ask what had been on her mind for a while.

“You’re all set then, lass,” Carson said.

Alison jumped off the medical table, but hesitated before leaving.

The healer noticed. “Is there something else?”

“I,” Alison inhaled quickly and pushed on, “I have a question, actually.”

No backing out of this now, she told herself as Carson gestured for her to go on.

“On the matter of soulmates,” she continued. “I guess I just don’t understand the evolutionary reasoning behind it. Behind same-sex soulmates, I mean.”

“Aye,” Carson nodded. “You might be surprised how often people have asked me that.” He patted for her to sit back down. She did. “You see, a society such as the Ancients had developed no need, actually no wish for extreme procreation. The allowance for fifty percent of the population to be entwined with another and fulfill that basic need, but to not reproduce was something that they courted and developed.”

“Oh,” Alison said. “But then, why would three ever develop?”

Carson rubbed his brow and Alison wondered why. “I’ve said from the beginning that our soulmates, as they’ve been named, are actually simply the  _most_  compatible around.” He sighed. “Basically, lass, you are just as compatible with Anne as you are with Alicia and likewise they with each other and with you.”

“So then,” Alison looked Carson straight in the eye. “They would be happy together without me?”

“N-” Carson cut himself of, which was good because Alison could already sense his lie.

“Thank you, Healer Beckett,” Alison said, once again getting off the table.

“Wait,” Carson said immediately. “Alison, just because they may have been happy before does not mean they would be now if you were to be gone. Would you be happy with just Anne? Just Alicia?”

“That’s different,” she said. “They were already together before I…” Alison shook her head. “Thank you,” she repeated.

Carson didn’t stop her this time.

-0o0oOo0o0-

“Remember, Teyla, anything that you talk about or that I hear from you will be kept at the uttermost level of confidence,” Kate said softly.

Teyla nodded slowly. “I am aware,” she paused. “You… read everyone you are in conversation with?”

Kate smiled in what Teyla supposed was her most comforting way. The Athosian thought that Kate might have to comfort her patients often, considering the nature of her mind-reading.

But in some ways, it was comforting to Teyla. All of the Atlantean’s and their  _gifts_  were, considering that she had one of her own.

“That is what is bothering you, is it not?” Kate interjected softly. “Your gift?”

Teyla felt a smile tug at her lips. “Yes,” she said. “It has been… rather active lately.”

“Active?” Kate frowned. “Can you, well, do you mind showing me?”

Teyla took in a deep breath and let her power loosen slightly, feeling the shadow on her mind like a physical thing. There was sudden darkness around her, a dread pulsating and a hunger. A deep hunger.

“Oh,” Kate said softly and Teyla drew back. “That is…”

“I apologize,” Teyla said. “I did not mean to-”

“No, you don’t need to apologize,” Kate said quickly. “I asked and I am glad that I am now able to understand what you are feeling. Is it always like that?”

Teyla shook her head. “No,” she told the mental healer. “It has been keeping me up at night, giving me nightmares and that is not something I am,” she looked away, “not something I am accustomed to.”

“You are a strong leader for your people, Teyla,” Kate said. “They respect you, have honored your decision to help us in trade, though they are happiest most when you are with them at the village.”

“I know,” Teyla blushed. “I thought of living here on the city, but…” The city of the Ancestors, Atlantis, was the Atlanteans by right of their blood.

Kate blinked. “I do not believe anyone here wished to make you feel ostracized.”

“I do not,” Teyla shook her head. “You have all been very welcoming to me and my people. But I, and they, recognize that Atlantis is  _alive_  for you. It is not a relic, it has become a home in a way it never could have for us.”

“I see,” Kate breathed out, looking just a bit stunned. Teyla felt satisfaction in breaking through her professional expressions, if only for a moment.

Kate smiled suddenly, obviously having caught that though. “Teyla-”

Teyla laughed, stopping after only a moment after realizing what she was doing. She put a hand to her lips “I-”

“You have not laughed in so long,” Kate murmured. “Your people are as safe as they can be on the mainland. You must know we will protect them with all that we can, give them access to the gate as much as they want, freedom to leave if they need to.”

“I do know that,” Teyla said. “And my people are grateful, as am I. Are situation here on Lantea is one of the best we could hope for under the shadow of the Wraith.” She smiled openly. “I have been discussing with your council the possibility of other refugees coming to join us and I believe it will serve my people well. To become part of a sanctuary, a safe haven…”

“Safe haven,” Kate repeated. “Yes, that would be marvelous, wouldn’t it?”

-0o0oOo0o0-

There was an immoral screech. John’s feet changed direction on their own accord even as he was reaching for his radio. “What in hell’s blazes was that?” Jack had come on over the radio before John could even press it.

“W-wraith!” a small voice came on. It took John a moment to recognize it as the soft constructor that looked at John’s soulmate with admiring eyes.

“Dammit, Miko, I’m coming,” he growled out and in a flash of blue and gold he felt the change come over him.

He could feel it now, like a tugging that pulled him down the hallway to the next corner and up a flight of stairs. Those steps up the stairs took too long, forever, and then he was jumping up over the last rail and Miko came into view.

She had been backed into a corner and it took John barely a moment to realize the Wraith had been playing with her. He wondered if that knowledge was a result of his military experience or his mutation.

Then his mutation was overcoming his instincts and as he observed the Wraith with golden eyes, he felt the need to destroy the intruder, the invader of his territory.

John let out a sort of hiss and launched himself forward. The Wraith turned and hissed back, hands grabbing at him. John flipped the side, horizontal to the ground until he twisted over his arm and bounced up into the Wraith’s space, clawing at black leather-like material until it gave way to skin and then to bone.

The Wraith screeched and kicked at him, but John was faster and he got a hold on the creature’s neck, ripping it to the side as if he could pull of its head.

He failed in the regard, but the Wraith went limp regardless, falling to the ground in dead weight.

John panted over the body, an internal struggle warring in him. By the time he was able to control himself enough to push back his mutation and turn once again human-colored, the rest of the council was barreling down the coordior. He stepped back from the Wraith’s body as they came to stop near him, Rodney immediately coming by his side.

“Is Miko okay?” John asked, looking around to find the soft constructor missing.

“She is well,” Teyla said, coming from behind Jack to look over the Wraith’s body. “She is in Healer Beckett’s care now.”

“How did it get here?” Daniel asked.

“I-” John began, but Rodney cut him off with a snap of his fingers. John raised an eyebrow at his soulmate.

“The dart,” Rodney said, referring to the mild scare that had occurred just a week prior. “It couldn’t get past the shield Jack erected, but it scanned the water nearby, didn’t it?” At the nods, the head constructor sighed. “Think, honestly am I surrounded by-”

“Rodney,” John warned.

“Right,” Rodney rolled his eyes. “We know that the beams pick up, dematerialize, and store the organic material, such as humans. Is it so hard a stretch to think that maybe the Wraith can beam himself down in reverse?”

“Huh,” Jack blinked. “So, wait, it  _swam_?”

“I have been sensing it,” Teyla said softly. “I did not realize…”

“No one blames you, Teyla,” John said quickly. “I should have sensed it too.”

“You?” Daniel blinked. “Oh, of course, because your mutation has to do with the iratus bug, which we think is related to the Wraith… or at least that’s what the database and Carson’s research seems to suggest…”

“You can sense the Wraith?” Teyla asked, her eyes dark with something John could not place.

“I’ve been trying to,” John said. “It comes and goes. I figured I would ask you for a little help with that, actually. Maybe you could train me?” He kept his tone light, easy for her to bow out.

Behind him, Rodney shifted and John reached a hand out to reassure his soulmate. The blue-eyed scientist over-thought things just a bit too often, John thought, not that he would have it any other way. Still, this wasn’t about him coming onto Teyla and he saw as Teyla realized that.

And suddenly, the Athosian’s shoulders relaxed. John mentally cursed himself for not realizing the burden she had been bearing, the  _gift_  of her Wraith DNA that was her mutation… one John now shared with her.

It was as if she’d finally realized she was no longer alone.

“I would be glad to,” Teyla whispered, reaching forward.

John tapped his forehead with hers, completing the Pegasus-style hug, and smiled.

-0o0oOo0o0-

“The  _Cucurbita Pepo_  isn’t doing well,” Katie said.

David looked up from the fern he was stroking and frowned. “Let me check,” he told the other botanist and walked over to the squashes. Like she’d said, the zucchini wasn’t looking very happy.

With a steady hand, David stroked the small fruit of the center plant and mentally asked it what was wrong. The leaves rustled, moving towards him and away simultaneously.

“So?” Katie asked curiously.

“Water’s too salty,” David sighed. “We need to check the desalination system.”

“I’ll ask once of the water-constructors to do it,” Katie said.

“Probably for the best,” David sighed. “You going back to the infirmary?”

Katie nodded as she slung her bag over her shoulder, her auburn hair bouncing slightly. His  _friend_  was technically a healer, just as David was a constructor, but they worked together to help feed the Atlanteans more than anything.

Katie saw him looking and smiled sweetly. “Are you coming by my room tonight?” she asked, a bit shyly.

David ducked his head. “If you want?”

Katie’s eyes brightened and she gave a nod. “I’ll see you then.”

He was more than a little bit in love, David thought. And what was he going to do? A sweet girl like Katie… she was bound to have a soulmate on this city somewhere. People were finding their other halves all the time; there were enough Atlanteans that close interaction, as was needed to actually recognize the pull, hadn’t happened for everyone.

David didn’t know how he’d handle that heartbreak to come.

Sighing, David grabbed the crate of ripe produce from the desk and turned towards the door. Gerald would like the supply to use for dinner that night.

The door opened just as he stepped through it and his crate bumped into something hard. David nearly dropped it, except extra hands helped him as he stumbled and righted both him and the crate.

“Thank you,” David began, looking at the person. He felt his face turn red as he realized whom he’d run into. “I am so sorry, Commander Lorne,” he said quickly, attempting to step back out of the man’s space.

“Constructor Parrish,” the warrior greeted with a bit of surprise in his tone. “I was just coming to find you.”

David looked down at where Lorne was still clasping his arm. The warrior saw his look and let go quickly. “What can I do for you, Commander?” he asked as he turned a bit to set down the crate on the nearby table.

“Evan, please,” the man said with a bit of a smile.

David’s felt his flush deepen. He hadn’t ever interacted with the commander before, but he had seen the man from a distance. He’d always thought, or maybe hoped, that the draw he’d felt towards Lorne, Evan, had been just that of his draw towards any of his leaders.

But now, in close contact, he couldn’t lie to himself.

Oh, Katie, he thought. What am I going to do? “What was it you wanted to talk to me about, sir?” David asked to distract himself.

Evan seemed to come to himself. “Ah, well my team is heading back to M5R-296 tomorrow and Daniel suggested that I bring along either you or Constructor Brown.”

“M5R-296?” David frowned. “Is that the planet with the thirty-thousand year old tree-like grove?”

“Exactly,” Evan nodded. “You’ll come, then?”

“I would be glad to,” David answered honestly. “To be honest, I was a bit jealous when I first read the report. With trees so old, they must contain much knowledge about the origins of this galaxy’s life structure.”

Evan’s lips twitched and David found his eyes drawn to them. “Great,” he said, and then hesitated openly.

That surprised David. He knew the commander to be a very confident man. “Is there something else?”

“There might be,” Evan murmured. “It’s like a tug, isn’t it? A need to get in contact…” Evan stepped closer and David felt his body react even as his mind was telling him to back off. “I don’t suppose-” His hand came up as if to stroke David’s cheek.

“Commander,” David cut him off, catching the man’s wandering hand with his own. “I, I can’t. Not now, please don’t ask this of me.”

Evan’s face closed and suddenly David saw the man that the warriors under his command must be faced with. “Excuse me, Constructor,” he said. “Our team has debriefing at 0600 tomorrow morning, don’t be late.”

David saw him back off and turn to leave. He thought of Katie, dear beautiful Katie, and cursed, not for the first time, the mutation his genes had undergone. “Evan,” he said before the commander could fully exit.

Evan turned back to him. “Yes?”

David took a steadying breath. “I need time,” he said. “This is, I’ve never… with a man before. But I can’t say no to this, to you.” I would be stupid to, he added mentally. One’s soulmate was supposedly one’s best match, after all.

Then what of his love for Katie? Was it even possible to love two people at once?

There was a little bit of light in Evan’s gaze now as he looked at him. “I’m a patient man,” Evan said.

“Thank you,” David murmured as Evan left. “If only I was worth the wait.”

-0o0oOo0o0-

“Can we make this a wee quick,” Carson said as he came into the chair room. “I’ve got Stackhouse’s team still recovering in the infirmary.” The poor lad and his men had come across a man-eating jungle on their latest mission and all of them had found themselves with some sort of strained limb.

“Quick as we can, Carson,” John said. “Daniel?”

“Okay,” Daniel nodded. “Remember our discussion on how there’s different technology that works better with different  _types_  of Atlanteans?”

“Yeah,” Evan said.

“It wasn’t that long ago, Daniel,” Jack said.

Daniel glared at his soulmate and Carson felt something ease in the middle of his shoulder blades. When things got rough, the comradely shared between his fellow leaders was always a relief.

He sometimes wondered why none of them were female, or more accurately why none of the females that had mutated became one of them. He knew Anne was set just below Evan, knew she’d be the new Second if either John or Evan fell… but that wasn’t something he liked to contemplate.

He supposed sweet Jennifer would be his replacement and he dearly wished he would never have to put that burden upon her shoulders, deceptively strong though she may be.

“Anyways,” Daniel said. “I have a theory that the chair might be… affected by our different tracks.”

“Affected how?” Rodney asked quickly.

“As in, it might change what is shows us, or will do for us,” Daniel said. “Like I said, just a theory, but one I think might be worth checking out.”

John shifted on his feet. “Okay, I’m going first. Maybe it’ll reveal some new weapon platforms for us.”

“Hold up,” Rodney quickly hooked up his datapad to the chair. “Ready, go.”

John sat down and Carson watched as the chair went blue under him. Carson himself had always resisted sitting in the one on Antarctica… but that was before he’d mutated and before he’d learned any semblance of control. Now, he was a mite interested.

“Anything?” Evan asked.

“Yeah, drones,” John said slowly. “I can feel them, I could shoot them so easily…”

“I think you’d better not, lad,” Carson advised quickly.

“Let’s save those,” Jack agreed. “What else?”

“The city is telling me how I can fly her,” John said.

“Her?” Daniel latched on. “Is the city sentient?”

“Not really,” John frowned. “An A.I., I guess, simple communication, but she’s weak.”

“Let me try, maybe I can help her,” Rodney said.

“Good idea,” Evan nodded. Carson watched John deactivate the chair and get up quickly. The healer took Rodney’s datapad, though the numbers on it made little sense to him as Rodney sat down in John’s previous spot.

“Oh,” Rodney said after a moment of silence. “Oh, I see.”

“Rodney?” John asked softly.

“Hold on,” Rodney’s eyes were closed. They all watched him with baited breath until finally the chair straightened and he smiled. “Done!”

“What did you do?” Jack asked.

Rodney stood and took his datapad back, punching a couple of things on it. “I re-rooted some of the power from erroneous areas and combined several systems Atlantis was running separately. It doesn’t help much in the long run, but it saves some strain from the ZedPM. I’d like to come back at a later point when she has more power, she was showing me some tips on engineering her systems when she flickered a bit.”

“I’ll take a quick peek,” Carson offered. He sat down, intrigued now.

The chair moved back and he waited for a second, disappointed when it seemed like nothing was happening.

And then suddenly he was overwhelmed with a sense of  _need_ , emotional longing and happiness as he felt the city, felt her reaching out to each and every Atlantean. He followed that reach, able now to touch all of those under his care, a sweep of health. He took note of those he needed to call into the infirmary, even without realizing he was doing just that.

The power was like a soothing drug, a chance to help. He felt the city spreading herself out as he searched for potential hazards in her unexplored regions. He found a lab somewhere on the east side, and then another three floors below him-

“-arson!”

Carson opened his eyes in a flash. “Sorry, lass,” he murmured to the city. “Got a bit carried away.”

The city gave him a touch of something that seemed like understanding before it let him up.

“That was bloody amazing!” Carson said as he stood. “We need to get her more power, lads, she don’t deserve being in this weakened-state.”

“Agreed,” Rodney nodded.

“Alright, let me see what the fuss is about,” Jack said. “Now I’m curious.”

Carson saw as Evan and Daniel exchanged a glance and he felt a momentary sense of guilt that they hadn’t gotten the chance to sit down. Then again, their hierarchy was firmly encoded in their minds, their genes even, and while the two Seconds might be on the council, they were not the most powerful of their type.

Jack was barely in the chair for a minute before he cursed.

“What is it?” Daniel asked quickly.

“I’ll show you,” Jack said darkly as a screen appeared above their heads.

Carson looked up and saw a blue dot that he supposed might be Atlantis, or maybe Lantea. Then three red dots moving in the distance. “What?”

“Wraith hiveships,” Jack said. “She hadn’t had enough power to show us earlier… we never turned on the long-range sensor in the gateroom.”

“That was what that…” Rodney mumbled the rest of his sentence. “This is not good.”

“How far out are they?” John asked quickly.

“Two weeks,” Jack said. The screen disappeared and he sat up. “Power just became a much greater priority.”

“I’ll say,” Evan agreed. “We aren’t going to go down without a fight.”

Carson shivered and vowed to make his infirmary ready for that day. They would help in anyway they could for this upcoming fight, even as John and Evan and Jack began to talk their offensive and defensive strategies and Rodney and Daniel made plans to search more thoroughly through the database for anything that could be useful.

Pegasus had just begun it’s greeting of the new Atlanteans.

-0o0oOo0o0-

The sunset on Lantea’s ocean was a beautiful thing to watch, Jack thought. He knew that in a couple of hours, the two moons would become visible, but for now he let the orange glow of the sun alternatively warm and cool him.

Could he protect this city that he’d already come to cherish from a threat deadlier than even the Goa’uld and Ori? Would his shields be strong enough to stop their invasion?

The door to the balcony slid open and Jack scooted over to the side as he felt the comforting mental presence he’d come to associate with Daniel. “Hey,” he said.

“You’re brooding,” Daniel told him.

Jack felt his lips twitch. “Maybe,” he agreed.

Daniel slid down next to him, his body heat warmer than the last of the sun’s rays as he tucked himself into Jack’s side. Jack moved his arm out of the way and waited before his lover was settled before he put it around the other’s shoulder.

They sat in silence for several minutes, a record for Daniel, Jack thought.

“Jack,” Daniel began and Jack let himself smile. “Do you…”

“Do I?” Jack caught sight of his lover’s open expression out of the corner of his eyes.

“I miss Sam and Teal’c,” Daniel said instead of continuing. “I think about them both so much and it’s frankly a bit unfair.”

“Unfair that the planet we both spent years protecting turned on us, or unfair that they didn’t mutate too?” Jack asked.

Daniel blushed. “They have Cam, though.”

“They do,” Jack nodded slowly. Him leaving SG1 had always been a bit of a sore spot between the two of them, but he’d trusted Mitchell with Daniel’s well being and he knew the Colonel hadn’t taken that lightly. He also knew that Daniel had come to really respect the military man.

Daniel took a breath suddenly and shook his head. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”

Jack swept his eyes over the now orange and pink-hued city. “It really is.”

Jack only had a moment to feel worried as a familiar, dirty smirk came over Daniel’s face. Then his soulmate was sliding down to his knees in front of Jack’s chair.

With a groan, Jack let his head fall back as Daniel unzipped his pants and gently took out his already hardening cock. “Danny,” he murmured as soft lips grazed him.

Daniel took his time, like he always did, worshiping Jack’s cock as if it were the most delicious thing he’d ever tasted. Jack let him do his thing, knowing that Daniel loved doing the act just as much as Jack loved receiving it.

A particularly hard suck had Jack coming into his soulmate’s mouth before he was ready, but he let out a heavy breath of relief regardless. Instead of coming up as Jack expected him to, however, Daniel continued to lick away, covering every bit of his cock.

Jack almost wondered if Daniel thought that he could get him hard again, but his lover knew that wasn’t viable… he was hardly a teenager anymore and he’d be lucky if he could go again even later that night.

“Danny, Daniel,” Jack grabbed Daniel by the chin and forced him to stop. “Not that I don’t appreciate it, space monkey, but I think I’m clean enough.”

Daniel’s bright eyes met his for a moment, and then he was shaking, his fingers trembling and his eyes wavering as he knelt there between Jack’s open thighs.

“What is it?” Jack murmured. “What’s wrong, Daniel. Tell me, please.”

“I don’t,” Daniel clenched his hands into Jack’s pant legs. “I can’t lose you, Jack.”

“You won’t, Danny,” Jack promised, pulling Daniel back up, his cock hanging loosely as he comforted his soulmate. “I won’t let the Wraith take you, take our home or anyone we’ve come to call family.”

“And you?” Daniel asked, curling closer to Jack’s body.

“And me,” Jack breathed. “They won’t be taking me either.”

-0o0oOo0o0-

“I will be the new Master Handler of the Brotherhood,” Allina said, holding the ZPM close to her chest. “I will hide the Potentia so that no one can find it until the Ancestors return.”

“We are their return,” Rodney said, again. “Allina, don’t do this.”

“How can I believe you?” Allina turned cool eyes on him. “Our allies have said that you have murdered their people, that you have not lived in the city long and when they went to rescue it from you they were murdered.”

Rodney flinched back, looking around at the various Genii soldiers that were pointing guns at them. He wished Jack was here, or baring that, Anne. Instead, it was just him, John, Daniel, and Aiden against twenty men with weapons and one spited female.

He knew he should have been a bit more gentle in his rejection of her advances, but they’d honestly taken him by surprise and it was only because of John’s jealousy that he’d even noticed she was flirting with him.

What was that they say about a woman scorned?

“I killed Koyla because he tried to take over my city,” John said, voice harsh. “Atlantis is our right, as is the ZPM that you hold. Those you call the Ancestors were not your relatives by blood, but they were ours.”

Rodney let himself feel some manner of satisfaction as Allina paled in the face of John’s golden-gazed fury. His brain told him, however, that now was not the time for retribution. He stepped forward, letting Ford’s doppleganger watch his back as he took the ZPM back from Allina’s hands.

“We can leave now and your people will have peace to know that they have fulfilled their task,” Daniel said, loud enough for the group to hear. “But if you hurt us, our people will come and level your world with forces you cannot imagine.”

It was a bluff, if only that if them four were to die and the ZPM were to be lost, then Atlantis might not survive the upcoming attack by the Wraith. But, Rodney told his brain, it was a good bluff as the soldiers began to waver.

John began to walk steadily towards the direction of the parked puddlejumper and Rodney followed close behind him. He heard a shot and turned his head, only to see as Ford’s doppleganger disappeared and then reappeared unharmed. The soldier who’d been just a bit trigger happy screamed and dropped his gun.

“Ford,” John called out curtly.

“Yes sir,” Ford grinned, trotting up to take the rear as the group left, shocked gazes on their backs.

-0o0oOo0o0-

“I still can’t believe that worked,” Evan said, shaking his head at the fact that the bluff on Dagan hadn’t resulted in even casualties. “They really just let you walk away?”

“Trust me, in hindsight I can’t really believe it either,” John said.

“There was indecision in Allina, she wasn’t sure she was doing the right thing in either direction. That we played on that kind of upsets me, but…” Daniel sighed. “It got us a ZPM.”

“That is did,” Rodney said, coming into the meeting room with a wide grin on his face. He sat down in the remaining empty seat.

“Rodney?” John asked.

“Like I said when we hooked it up, full power, and no problems. I set Atlantis to repair some of her systems and let me say it’s much easier to communicate with her now than it was before,” Rodney lay his datapad flat on the table, practically bouncing in his seat until John placed a hand on the back of his neck and he visibly calmed down.

“Communicate as in…” Jack raised an eyebrow.

“Not words,” Rodney said. “But the meanings of her emotional outbursts and images are easier to read.”

Evan shifted in his chair. He would love to communicate with the city, hear her like the main four of the council had, but he would, could, wait until the right time. A time when the Wraith weren’t a just week away from Lantea.

“Okay, then,” Jack breathed. “Teyla…”

Their current guest at the council meeting nodded. “My people have accepted your suggestion, Guard O’Neill, and we have relocated closer to the beach on the far side of the mainland. All hunting parties are set to be due back within the next few days and all have been informed of their ability to go through the Ring of the Ancestors if they wished to do so.”

“And have any?” John asked.

Teyla’s lips quirked in a pretty smile. Evan felt a stir in his gut like he would at the sight of any beautiful female, but it fled quickly as a lankier frame came into his mind. David Parrish, he thought, David had been avoiding him for weeks now.

Evan mentally shook himself, now was not the time for fantasies and wishes. Teyla was speaking, “No, they have not. With the assurance that our new settlement will be shielded against the attack, my people have decided to trust yours. And,” she looked around, “open our camp to any who are in need of a new home.”

“A sanctuary,” Daniel breathed.

“Your people would be willing, lass?” Carson said. “Not to say that they wouldn’t, just that-”

“Healer Beckett,” Teyla cut in quickly. “My people are small in number and have been low in spirits for quite some time. To be able to help others, even if just by accepting them into our community, would give us a sense of pride.”

“We can send some metal and wood workers to help construct some actual buildings,” Daniel murmured. “Rodney…”

“Ellen knows what she’s doing,” Rodney waved a hand. “Assign her to head the project.”

“Good idea,” Daniel nodded and made a note.

“We decided that we will allow dayworkers on the city,” Jack told Teyla. “For any who have scientific or trade knowledge, but we can’t let any other than Atlanteans sleep here for security purposes.”

Teyla nodded, but Evan was adding on before she could say anything. “Since constant transportation with the puddlejumpers would be essentially milk runs for warriors and guards we need running other stations…”

“Right,” Rodney looked up. “So, Atlantis has enough power now that we, that’s Kusanagi and I, think that she can fly a short without us using out too much power.”

“Fly her?” John perked up. “Really?”

Rodney shook his head in amusement. “Yes, John. Just to the other side of the mainland. If we can get closer to where the Athosians are moving their camp, it’ll make spreading the shield to them far easier. It will also allow for a long range teleport system to be built, based off the transporters that already exist on the city.”

“We can do that?” Jack blinked.

“Lindsay has been looking into it, she is able to teleport herself and the energy signature she gives off when she’d doing so is much the same as the transporters. She sent me her proof and it has merit for us building our own,” Rodney explained quickly. “Though it is, of course, now without its flaws.”

“Good enough for me,” Evan admitted.

“The more people we bring in, I’m going to start seeing who has military experience,” John said after a moment. “A division of foot soldiers would not go amiss, not if we’re going to do this the way I want.”

“And by do this, you mean fuck up the Wraith, right?” Jack raised an eyebrow.

“At least tell them to fuck  _off_  before Carson finishes his retrovirus,” John nodded.

Carson nodded, a little pale but looking determined.

“This is a great step for this galaxy,” Daniel said. “It just, it makes me excited to think about the fact that we can do this, that we can help in this way.”

“I agree, Constructor Jackson,” Teyla said, and her eyes were bright. “Though we have much work ahead of us, this sanctuary is the first step in what my people hope will be the path to finally leaving the shadow of the Wraith.”

“Have you decided on a name for this new sanctuary?” John asked after the silence began to stretch, each with their own thoughts.

“Yes,” Teyla nodded. “It shall be called Haven.”

“Haven,” Evan repeated.

Carson sighed out wistfully. “Haven.”

“Haven,” Rodney nodded.

“Haven,” Jack and Daniel said together.

John lifted his eyes to the ceiling. “Then a haven it shall be.”


	3. Chapter 3

The battle against the three Wraith hives was almost disappointedly short. With a full ZedPM, the shield held up in the city long enough for Jack, in the chair, to send out drones against the darts that attempted to attack the city.

The hives themselves were destroyed by a combination of the puddlejumpers and the guards and warriors who had long ranged abilities. Stackhouse and Markham, especially, destroyed an entire hive by themselves, though they both passed out afterwards.

Rodney, for his part, kept up a constant diagnosis of the city. He didn’t want this battle to deplete all their power so quickly, but it seemed it wouldn’t be a problem. The hives had not been expecting so much resistance from a city that had been in hibernation for ten thousand years.

In the future, he knew, they would need more power. Three full ZedPMs and more ships. Larger ships, if he could figure out how to manufacture them with their limited resources.

His brain sent out a couple blueprints, but he waved them away. Now was not the time. Soon, he thought, it would be, but not now.

Now, he cheered with the rest of the Atlanteans as the final ship broke in two and drifted out of Lantea’s orbit.

-0o0oOo0o0-

The Wraith hissed, its arm knocking Aiden’s knife aside. Aiden fell backwards, dark eyes wide as the Wraith descended upon him. Its eyes narrowed gleefully as it struck out to feed.

Aiden’s black eyes flickered and he grinned, before disappearing into a dark shadow.

One of the great things about the doppelganger was that the Wraith couldn’t feed on it.

Aiden, the real Aiden, fired at the Wraith. It twitched, looking towards him. Behind him, Aiden’s doppelganger reappeared. He dropped and rolled, allowing his doppelganger to tackle the Wraith to the ground.

There was an inhuman snarl and then the Wraith fell limp. Aiden shot it once more, just in case, before allowing his doppelganger to disappear.

He tapped his radio. “Commander.”

“We’re fifty clicks to your left, Ford,” Sheppard said immediately. Aiden wondered if he’d felt the Wraith die, or if he’d just heard the gunshots.

Aiden jogged towards the rest of the team, nodding to Jackson as he approached. Teyla was on the mainland, so Stackhouse and Markham were with them for this mission.

“Anything?” Aiden asked Jackson.

“No native humanoid life that I can find,” Jackson told him. “There’s a high level of radiation here, but these trees are still alive. I think we should get one of the more plant-oriented constructors out here. Maybe Parrish.”

“Sounds good to me,” Sheppard said, obviously bored. They’d been about to head back when a Wraith dart had attacked the planet, but now that the enemy had supposedly been neutralized…

A shout echoed through the woods. Aiden was just behind Sheppard as they rushed towards it, but neither of them activated their mutations yet. They never did, unless they were sure of who they were combating. After all, it wouldn’t do to spread the word on the Atlanteans’ specific abilities.

The source of the shout became clear as they burst into a clearing to see a dark-haired male combatting another Wraith. He was struggling barehanded to dodge the Wraith’s hand.

Sheppard nodded to Aiden, who quickly summoned his doppelganger. He fired two warning shots and as the Wraith turned, his doppelganger attacked.

The Wraith cried to the sky and threw the unknown male against a tree. Aiden saw him drop to the ground, unconscious, before his attention was back on the Wraith.

With no more watchers, Sheppard transformed and stuck, slashing open the Wraith’s vulnerable neck. The Wraith gurgled at them, hatred in its eyes, before it collapsed face first.

“Fuck,” Jackson said. He rushed to the unconscious male and turned him over. The rest of them surrounded the two as Jackson checked the man’s pulse and breathing.

“He’s hurt, broken ribs maybe,” Jackson said. “He needs help.”

Aiden turned to Sheppard who hesitated for only a second before nodding. “We’ll take him back to Atlantis. Carson will heal him.”

“You’ll take Tyre no where.”

Aiden turned, his doppelganger appearing behind the new stranger. The stranger flinched and turned, sensing the doppelganger’s presence. He fire with his gun, an energy phaser, Aiden noticed. He shivered as his doppelganger dissolved.

“Wait!” Jackson cried. He stood, his hands up. “We’re not going to hurt your friend.”

The stranger frowned, his gun now training steadily on Jackson. Aiden saw Sheppard’s hand twitch and he knew his commander would jump in the way of the blast should the stranger fire.

“My name is Commander John Sheppard, of the Atlanteans,” Sheppard said after a moment. “This is Cadet Ford, Constructor Jackson, and Warriors Stackhouse and Markham. We don’t want trouble.”

“Then you’ll step away from Tyre,” the stranger said, unflinching.

Aiden motioned Jackson back, keeping his eye on the stranger. Markham and Stackhouse were clasping hands, ready to let loose an energy burst should it be necessary. He doubted it would, though, not with Sheppard as their team leader and against a single man.

Sheppard stepped around the unconscious male, Tyre, giving the stranger a clear path. The stranger took several steps forward, gun pointed now at Sheppard as he slowly kneeled and shook his friend.

Tyre groaned and opened his eyes. “Ronon?” he asked softly, then jolted as he realized they weren’t alone. In a moment, he was on his feet with his companion. Aiden inwardly winced, knowing how much that would hurt were Tyre’s ribs really cracked.

“What happened to the Wraith?” Tyre asked after a moment of unsteady silence.

Sheppard raised an eyebrow and gestured to where the Wraith’s corpse lay unmoving on the ground. Tyre took a deep breath and then put his hand on Ronon’s arm, pushing the man’s gun down. “Then I am in your debt.”

“We would have killed it regardless,” Sheppard said. “But you’re hurt. I’d give you, both of you,” his eyes glanced to Ronon, then snapped back to Tyre, “safety and healing.”

“In return for what?” Ronon asked gruffly.

“Information,” Sheppard said. “On what you know of the Wraith’s movements. That is all.”

“And what would you do with this information?” Ronon questioned.

Sheppard let loose a fierce smile. “I would use it to better a strategy to destroy them.”

Aiden watched as Tyre’s shoulders seemed to slump, just barely. “Ronon,” he said. “We cannot.”

Ronon’s hand brushed Tyre’s shoulder and he nodded. “I know.”

“Why not?” that was Jackson, always the idealist. “You’d be free to leave anytime, our word.

Ronon and Tyre exchanged a glance and then Tyre turned to Jackson. “We are runners.”

At the Atlanteans’ confused looks, Tyre sighed, but it was Ronon who said. “We are being tracked. The Wraith hunt us for sport.” He grinned, much like Sheppard had done earlier. “We hunt them back.”

They’d have to, Aiden thought, to survive, were they telling the truth. He felt sick all of the sudden and he could tell Jackson had paled significantly.

Sheppard let out a quick breath and gestured to Markham and Stackhouse. “Go get Carson and explain the situation to him. Let him bring whatever he needs.” He paused and turned to the two runners. “Where is the tracker located?”

“The top of our spines,” Tyre said. “Against the central nerve, or so other doctors have said. None have had the skill to remove it without potentially killing us.”

“Carson’s more than just a doctor,” Sheppard said and Aiden felt a swell of pride at those words.

They were  _all_  more than they used to be after all.

-0o0oOo0o0-

“The center hall will go here,” Ellen said, smiling as the leader of the mainland sanctuary, of Haven, nodded.

“It has been a long time since my people have had permanent dwellings,” Teyla said. “But I know many who will join us may be used to such luxury.”

“Well we’re still gonna have people living in tents,” Ellen said. “But at the very least we can set up several buildings for the center of Haven. Especially, we’ll need a safe place for the transport systems.

“Yes, I was just conferring with Lindsay,” Teyla nodded. “She was quite nice to explain to me what she was doing, but I am afraid I do not really understand.”

Ellen laughed. “That’s okay, most of us don’t,” she said. Of course, thinking of Lindsay had her thinking of Lindsay’s current helper for the transporters project, Archimedes.

It had been a long time since they’d had a night alone together. She strived to fix that as soon as the main planning for the construction of Haven was finished.

“Your people work very hard,” Teyla said, a pleased smile hovering at the edges of her lips. “I thank you again.”

“We do what we can,” Ellen said. She thought of the few people who’d helped her and Archimedes as they ran from mainland Europe to Canada. “I believe that every act of kindness can be paid forward.”

“Paid forward?” Teyla asked.

Ellen flushed. “It means that instead of trying to repay the one who helped you, you should instead help another. To keep the cycle going.”

“Ah,” Teyla’s eyes cleared and she did smile this time. “I find that most wise.” She paused, looking over the sight which had been cleared near the coast for the introduction of the town of Haven. “Perhaps by accepting people into our sanctuary, that is one way to… pay it forward?”

“Yeah,” Ellen nodded. “I think so.”

-0o0oOo0o0-

The large meeting room was full of his warriors by the time John stepped in. He walked to the front of the crowd and stood on the elevated platform as it rose so they all could see him.

“Atlanteans,” John greeted. “You fought well with the guards to defend Atlantis against the attack a few weeks ago and I’m proud of you for it.”

In the front row, he saw as Ford nudged Cadman and she rolled her eyes. Evan snapped a look towards the both of them and they straightened. John hid a grin and turned his eyes back over the assembled warriors.

“However,” he said. “This is only the beginning of our fight against the Wraith. It may not be what we wanted when we came to this galaxy, to immediately enter a war, but it is what it is.”

“Our circumstances here are still better than what they would have been had we stayed,” Crown said from the middle of the crowd.

There was a murmuring as the warriors agreed with him. John raised a hand and silence reigned once more.

“I don’t disagree,” he said. “However, we and the Wraith are not the only ones in this galaxy. You have all heard of the town being built on the mainland.”

There was some collective nodding and a few people said, “Haven.”

“Haven,” John repeated. “We’ll be getting an influx of refugees from culled worlds around this galaxy. Dayworkers will come in and out of the city, but only Atlanteans will be sleeping on Atlantis.”

“What are the logistics of security, sir?” Leonard asked.

“The guards will be handling it,” John told them. “Our worry is not to be Haven or those in it, but with our fight out in the galaxy. And for that reason, I am considering including several infantry units composed of natives of this galaxy.”

There was an outpour of noise from the warriors as everyone attempted to speak at once. John raised his hand again, keeping it up until they’d all quieted.

“Now, I know we are the  _Atlantean_ Warriors,” John said. “But we are small in number. A single hive ship outnumbers us. And yes, each one of us could take on several Wraith. I have faith in all of you and your training and how much you’ve committed yourself to learning how to be a better warrior since our time coming to Atlantis.”

“But?” Dorsey asked softly.

“But, like I said, we are small,” John said. “And we do not have the tactical advantage of knowing this galaxy. There were worlds culled who’d had armies. Yes, they were destroyed by the Wraith, but that was mostly due to an insignificant amount of technology and, in some cases, poor command.”

“At least we don’t have that problem!” someone shouted. John raised his eyebrows, but he couldn’t see who it had been.

“Thanks,” he muttered dryly and the warriors chuckled. He cleared his throat. “Regardless, we need more men, and women, to boost our numbers. This will happen slowly, but my end vision is for an army comprised mostly of non-Atlanteans with you, my warriors, as my elite force.”

The warriors seemed to be mollified by that and a few nodded. His commanders, he saw, agreed with him and though they’d have many a meeting as just officers to discuss the logistics, for now he was pleased to see that his suggestion would not bring an uprising.

John’s radio clicked and then Carson’s voice came on. “John, I need you and Evan to come to the infirmary, stat.”

John frowned. “Understood.” He clicked the radio off and clapped. “Okay, that’s all I had to say. Dismissed.”

As the warriors filed out the room, John gestured to Evan, who, by his face, had heard the radio burst, and together they raced to the healing ward.

-0o0oOo0o0-

Daniel was looking through the glass window down to where Ronon and Tyre were being held when John and Evan rushed in. Jack was already there by his side and Rodney was just a minute behind John.

“What’s happening?” John asked.

Carson sighed. “As you know, after I took out the trackers in Ronon and Tyre here, they both passed out from the pain.”

“Not surprising, considering that they wouldn’t let us numb it,” John muttered.

“Right,” Carson waved a hand. “I brought them here for observation, but it seems they have… mutated.”

“What?” Daniel wasn’t sure who said it, but the rest of the council was looking at Carson like he’d gone mad and Daniel grimaced.

“I took the liberty of looking up the homeworld Ronon had mentioned when Carson was doing the surgery on Tyre,” Daniel explained. “Sateda. Well, according to the database, it was actually created by a rogue band of Ancients who decided that they wanted to start anew, away from the council that had ruled over Atlantis at the time.”

“So they survived the Great War,” Jack muttered.

“Only to forget about their heritage and attempt to combat the Wraith before they, as a civilization, could manage it. The entire world was culled,” Daniel shook his head, bile rising in his throat.

“So Atlantis awakened them,” Rodney said. “Like it did to us.”

“That is our current theory, yes,” Carson stated. He glanced back at the now unconscious Satedans. “There’s also suggestion that those two may be soulmates.”

“That would explain some things,” John said, catching Daniel’s eyes.

Daniel thought of Ronon’s protectiveness and nodded.

“What now?” Evan wondered aloud.

“I’ll talk to them,” John said. “When they wake up. Ask them to joining us.”

“They have the right,” Daniel agreed. “They don’t have any other home.”

“And they are Atlanteans, apparently,” Jack said. “Even if they didn’t know it.”

Carson sighed. “I’ll inform you the minute they wake up, then.”

Below, as Daniel watched, Ronon began to stir and he wondered how this would change things on the city.

-0o0oOo0o0-

Anne was worried. Alison had been distant, recently. She could tell that Alicia had noticed as well.

There wasn’t a lot for it, though. Whatever the problem was, she supposed they would have to wait for Alison to come to them. After all, she was the one with the ability to sense lies and neither Alicia’s sight nor Anne’s telekinesis would have any effect in this situation.

Of course, with all that was going on around the city: first the Wraith hive ships attacked and then the ongoing construction of Haven and the newcomers on the city… well the only time any of them seemed to see each other were either on missions or at night, in bed when they could all make it.

She wondered if it should be uncomfortable, three in one bed. But no, she thought, it was just perfect. With Alicia spread across her chest and Alison curled around her arm, Anne found peace.

And whatever was wrong with their soulmate, well she and Alicia would figure it out and hopefully they’d continue to have this peace together for year to come.

-0o0oOo0o0-

“What do you think?” Tyre asked once the man, Commander Sheppard, had left.

Ronon looked up, at the glass where he knew they were being watched. “Some would say we deserve the peace of rest.” Sheppard had given them three choices, to live in the new sanctuary, Haven, to leave Atlantis… the city of ancestors that apparently were really their ancestors, or to stay. To fight.

Tyre snorted, as if he knew exactly what Ronon was thinking. “But that is not us.”

Ronon shook his head. He glanced down at his hands and drew them into fists. His skin visibly hardened, until he relaxed and it turned normal. “These… abilities…”

“They are like the old folklore of our people,” Tyre said. “Of a time when we had strengths of gods.”

“Until our people’s arrogance allowed us to ignore the gifts we had been given and soon we forgot about then,” Ronon continued. Just like their ignorance had let to Sateda’s destruction, but he didn’t say that aloud.

By the look in Tyre’s eyes, he heard it regardless.

Ronon sighed. “I wish to fight, alongside these people if they fight like they seem they do. But I will not stay unless you wish it.”

“I followed you from Sateda and I will continue to do so,” Tyre murmured. He reached forward and grasped Ronon’s arm. “This connection between us, I feel as though it has grown stronger.”

“As we have,” Ronon said. He blinked and then Tyre was on his bed. “Oh.”

“You have grown stronger,” Tyre said.

“And you faster,” Ronon stated. He took the chance of Tyre’s proximity to tug him in for a relieved hug. “Will we stay?”

“Yes,” Tyre said.

Ronon grinned, though he hid it in Tyre’s shoulder so those who watched would not yet see.

Not yet.

-0o0oOo0o0-

Jack cleared his throat as soon as the last of the high council sat. “First on the agenda today, I think, is the repercussions left over from our battle against the Wraith hives.”

“Other than the loss of puddlejumper five, you mean,” John said.

Jack inclined his head. “Other than that.”

“Our previous ZedPM was depleted completely,” Rodney said. “So now we’re running on only the one from the Brotherhood planet. Luckily it had been full.”

“What’s it at now?” Evan asked.

“Approximately ninety-percent full,” Rodney said. “Which will sustain us, but if we need to use the shield for any extended period of time again… or fly the city. My estimate says that the short flight over to the other side of the mainland might bring us down to eighty-five, but that’s only because we’ll be idling so as not to cause catastrophic tsunamis by our landing.”

“When are we doing that?” John asked, looking as excited as Jack felt. He was only jealous that it would be his fellow high commander’s job to actually fly the city.

“I discussed it with Teyla and she believes that if we were to make a ceremony out of it, as the opening of the completion of the city of Haven, then it would do much to appease her people who are used to their nomadic life,” Daniel said. “I agree. And I think our Atlanteans would like that as well.”

Jack nodded. “I like it. How long do we have ‘til Haven is ready?”

“It’ll always be an ongoing process, won’t it?” Carson said.

“But the main construction and setting up should be done by the end of the month,” Rodney said. “Ellen knows what she’d doing, architecturally, and Lindsay fixed the final bugs in the transporter proofs yesterday.”

“Other than all that,” John said. “I discussed making a larger army with my warriors yesterday and they seem accepting.”

“Only because you told them they were an elite force,” Evan pointed out.

“Well, they are,” John shrugged. “But I want to promote Ford to Junior Commander and give him his own team.”

“Cadman’s not quite ready,” Evan said. “But if we promote her and give her a team of our more experienced warriors, it should be fine.”

“I agree,” John nodded.

“Why, though?” Daniel asked. “Why promote before they’re completely ready.”

“I want Ronon and Tyre on my team, where I can keep an eye on them,” John said. “And it wouldn’t do to promote Ford before Cadman, considering back on Earth she’d been a lieutenant for longer.”

“Besides, sometimes the best way to learn command is to have to be in command,” Evan stated.

“Will you be making more Cadets, then?” Jack asked.

“One, for now,” John said. “Mehra will stay on Teldy’s team, but she’ll be promoted.”

“We’re going to put off all the promotions until after Haven opens, though,” Evan said.

“Good idea,” Jack nodded. “Anything else?”

“Well… I’m hungry,” Rodney complained and they all chuckled.

-0o0oOo0o0-

One of the strangest things about being in Rodney’s mind, Laura discovered, was not _Rodney_. No… it was sharing it with three beings.

“I can’t help it if my brain likes you,” Rodney flushed. Carson glanced their way with a raised eyebrow and Laura mentally pushed at Rodney, upset.

“ _Don’t say it like that_ ,” she said mentally. “ _Just… all the times you talked about your brain as separate. I never really believed it_.”

“No one did,” Rodney rolled his eyes, ignored the looks they were now getting from the rest of the high council. “It is.”

“ _I get that now_ ,” Laura told him.

“Uh, Rodney?” John said.

Laura felt a rush of emotions, not hers, but from both Rodney and his brain. Intense attraction, need… love.

She felt guilty, momentarily, that she’d forced Rodney to sleep in her room instead of share a bed with Commander Sheppard like he usually did. But, she’d argued, she wasn’t comfortable sleeping her commander and Rodney had been jealous enough of the idea to agree.

Now, though, seeing their need for each other was enough to ping at her a different way. Enough to have her regret that she was putting off the inevitable with her and Carson.

Rodney’s brain brushed against her, hearing her thoughts. That was disconcerting, she thought. Rodney couldn’t hear her unless she thought too loudly, but his brain had no such problems. She wondered if it would keep her secret.

The brain seemed to nod and give her an encouraging pat. “ _Well, at least your nicer than Rodney_ ,” Laura told it.

“Hey!” Rodney protested.

“Rodney?” John said again.

“Sorry,” Rodney scowled. “It’s hard enough with my brain nagging me, now Cadman is too.”

Laura giggled, liking how it made Rodney scowl harder.

“Don’t get too used to it, lad,” Carson said. “There’s… a problem with this. However much your mind can accommodate with both your conscious and your brain… it can’t permanently take so many.”

“ _What does that mean_?” Laura asked, dread settling in the pit of her imaginary stomach.

Rodney’s brain sent a wave of urgency to the both of them and then retreated slightly to restart on its calculations of fixing the machine.

“Carson?” Rodney prodded.

“If you don’t figure out the machine soon,” Carson said. “Then one of you will… fade.”

Laura gulped and Rodney paled. “I… no, that’s-”

“ _Rodney_ ,” Laura interrupted. She wondered when she’d started calling the constructor by his first name, but that wasn’t important right now. Besides, she was in his body, she’d seen him naked, it would be weird to call him McKay at this point. “ _I know you and your brain can do this. Just… you know you’re on a time constraint now_.”

She could already feel it, the pressure. If it weren’t for both Rodney’s brain and Rodney himself distracting her, she thought she might suffocate.

Rodney’s brain tugged at her and she let it anchor her. She didn’t want to fade, but neither did she want to stay in Rodney forever.

Luckily for all of them, Rodney and Rodney’s brain worked well together. Within a few hours, their tests on mice had worked and Rodney moved their shared body to the center to take the blast.

“Ready?” Rodney asked.

“ _Ready_ ,” Laura confirmed. Rodney’s brain sent back an affirmative and let Laura go. It receded far into Rodney’s mind so it wouldn’t be caught and accidentally sent to Laura’s body.

Laura was grateful, after all as much as she liked Rodney’s brain… she didn’t really want to be stuck with it.

And then the blast hit and the next thing she knew, she was waking up in the infirmary. Looking down, she saw her own hands and let out a small  _whoop_.

On the bed over, Rodney rolled his eyes, but a smile spread over his lips as his brain, undoubtedly, told him something nice.

-0o0oOo0o0-

“Cousin,” Takeshi said, closing the door behind him as he entered Miko’s room.

Miko smiled at him softly. “Cousin,” she greeted back. “Are you in need of assistance?”

“All I wish for is your company,” Takeshi said, taking a seat at the small table Miko had been given specially for her room. She’d yet to tell him who had ordered her the ornate Japanese set, complete with comfortable, but decorative kneeling pillows.

Takeshi had a suspicion, but he figured that he’d let the head constructor of their city maintain that he was mean with no people skills and accusing him of helping Takeshi’s cousin feel less homesick would ruin his reputation.

“You were not at lunch,” Miko stated.

Takeshi rubbed the back of his head sheepishly. “No, I was not. I… felt a pull.”

Miko’s already straight back straighten further. She seemed to demand more without saying a word.

Takeshi chuckled. “I did not find a person, but I believe I have a better idea. They were in the kitchen area, but had left by the time I’d arrived.”

“And you did not ask?” Miko scolded. “You heart’s other half is worth-”

“Miko,” Takeshi interrupted gently. “I felt a sort of… sadness from the connection. I think that they, whomever they may be, are hurting still from something. I wished to give them time.”

Miko paused and then sighed. “It is your choice, Cousin,” she murmured.

“Speaking of soulmates,” Takeshi said, trying to lighten the mood. “Where is yours?”

Miko blushed at the mention of Joseph. “He was required by Constructor Jackson to help with the archives.”

“His memory would be useful with that,” Takeshi nodded, pleased. “Still, it is getting late. I should retire.”

“Of course,” Miko stood with him, kissing Takeshi on the cheek. “Good luck.”

Takeshi smiled. “We are already so lucky,” he reminded her and Miko laughed, eyes bright.

-0o0oOo0o0-

Rodney slammed his fists against the console. John winced in his peripheral image. “Rodney…”

“It should work,  _John_ ,” Rodney rubbed his head, aggravated. “My brain agrees… this… the laws of physics aren’t working like they should. I don’t understand.”

“Abrams death wasn’t your fault,” John said.

Rodney shook his head, because it was. He’d pushed for this, to finish the Ancient’s work. His brain re-ran the calculations, but they came up the same.

“I don’t understand,” he repeated.

“Rodney,” John said. “Do you think maybe that this project, the Arcterus project, wasn’t finished for a reason?”

Rodney froze, and then nodded. “Yeah.”

John stepped forward and wrapped him in his arms. Rodney sank his head into John’s shoulder, shaking. “I just wanted…”

“I know,” John shushed him. “I know, Rodney. It’s okay, there’ll be other ways.”

Rodney nodded, but barely, and pulled back. “There’s a database in the system. I just need to download it and then… I’m going to lock down the system so that no one can try again. Not unless they really know what they’re doing.”

“Good,” John cleared his throat. “That’s good, Rodney.”

-0o0oOo0o0-

Carson handed the datapad to Marie and smiled at Laura. “Is there something I can do for you, lass?”

“Yeah,” Laura said. She seemed nervous, but there was determination in her eyes. Not for the first time, Carson felt a rush of attraction spread through him, but he pushed it down. A sweet girl like Laura had no reason to be interested in him.

“Did you want to talk privately?” he asked.

Laura nodded and he led her to his office, closing the door softly. He turned back to face her, only to find her right in his space.

And then they were kissing. Carson found himself responding before he even registered the implications, gripping at her hair so she wouldn’t leave.

Then thought caught up with him and he pulled back. “I…”

“I think it’s funny,” Laura said. “You’re the expert on diagnosing soulmates, and you didn’t even realize yours was right here.”

She seemed fine, at first, but Carson saw the fear in her closed expression and he realized she thought she’d be rejected. Well, that’d be bloody stupid of him, wouldn’t it? “Maybe a bit daft of me,” he agreed.

Laura smiled brightly. “So, did you want to get dinner tonight?”

Carson felt a blush spread over his cheeks and he realized that any control he’d thought he might have over this relationship was sure to go down the drain.

“I’d love to,” he said, because really he didn’t mind.

-0o0oOo0o0-

“Rodney, Daniel,” Jack nodded as the two came in together.

Evan shifted in his chair as the last of the high council sat down. He wondered what’d put that excited look on their faces.

“Remember the data that Rodney downloaded from the Arcterus project?” Daniel began.

John nodded abruptly, his eyes on Rodney, whose cheer had diminished just slightly at the name.

“Well, Rodney and I have been decoding it,” Daniel continued. “And we found something.”

“Now, we have no way of knowing if this information is accurate, considering it’s ten thousand years old,” Rodney warned. “But… there’s a chance.”

“We know that the Ancients didn’t keep most of their weaponry here on the city,” Daniel said. “We have less than a hundred drones left and no sign of any armory of the guns the Ancients used or any of the large battleships.”

“But I thought all of that had been used or destroyed during the Great War,” Evan said.

“Right,” Daniel agreed. “That was the theory. But this data suggest that there were several outposts in the galaxy, arms and supply outposts.”

Jack and John were both beginning to look as eager as Daniel and Rodney were. Carson still scratched at his head, but Evan knew the healer was contemplating the information as much as the more militaristic members were.

“We have the address for one of the outposts,” Rodney said. “Mostly because Arcterus had sent a missive to it for more raw material just before the project had been abandoned.”

“When can we go?” John asked immiediatly.

Daniel grimaced. “Actually, we’re going to need a little more time. There’s apparently safety codes on the gate and inside the outpost. Better to have all the information before we’re hit with safety precautions and booted out.”

“Right, well I’m sold,” Jack said.

“Me too,” Evan agreed.

“Just let us know what you’ve got it,” John told the constructors. “And I’ll take a team out.”

-0o0oOo0o0-

Evan’s team was late for their checkup. David mindlessly watered the bean sprouts as that thought repeated on loop in his head.

Evan’s team was late.

Evan’s team was never late.

But they were late.

David moved onto the large fern that served as a centerpiece for this section of the pseudo-greenhouse. The hose sputtered and he stared at it sightlessly.

He wouldn’t have even known, except that he’d overheard Chuck tell Commander Sheppard. No one knew that he and Evan were soulmates.

It had been weeks since he’d even talked to the man.

David’s hands were shaking. He turned off the hose, though it took him several tries, and sat hard on a harsh metal stool.

Evan’s team was late for their checkup by hours. They could be dead.

David continued to shake.

“David?”

He looked up to see that Katie had entered and was now standing near him. Her expression was soft, sad. Understanding.

“His team is late,” David choked out.

“Commander Lorne?” she guessed.

“How?” David took a shuddering breath in. “Yeah.”

Katie approached him slowly, as if he would lash out at her for it, and grasped his hand. “Why have you been denying yourself?”

“I don’t know him,” David said. His grip in her hand tightened. “I love you, Katie. You mean so much to me.”

“And I still will,” Katie said. “Just like you will always be one of my closest companions. But we do not have to have sex to continue with that.”

“It’s not fair,” David leaned forward, resting his head against her side. “I’m sorry.”

“I know,” Katie murmured. “Me too. But Lorne… Evan is yours just as you are his. Don’t hurt him too.”

David swallowed harshly. “Okay,” he agreed with a voice so soft he could barely hear it himself. “When he gets back… when he gets-”

“Have faith,” Katie told him. “They’ll find him and his team.”

David nodded, still enclosed in Katie’s arms, and hoped that he hadn’t already lost his chance.

-0o0oOo0o0-

The bodies they brought in for Evan’s team were so badly burnt that they weren’t distinguishable. Carson stared at them, at first, at the one that, by her dog tags, should be Laura’s.

John grasped his arm. “Carson?”

Carson frowned, moving forward to touch the husk of Laura. “I… I’m not sure.”

“If you need someone else to do the autopsy,” John began.

“He does,” Daniel cut him off. “Laura was your soulmate… Carson.”

But Carson didn’t feel her die. Didn’t feel her pain and from all he’d read he should have felt  _something_.

He should feel something looking at his husk in front of him. This body.

A body.

“Evan!”

The entire council turned to see one of the healers trying to hold back the constructor Carson vaguely recognized as David Parrish.

“Let him in,” Rodney said, his blue eyes sharp even as he tightly held John’s hand.

David looked startled, and then understanding. A flush spread over his cheeks as the entire high council, minus Evan… Evan who was dead, watched him, but he came forward to look down at Evan’s body.

Carson watched as with a shaking hand David touched Evan’s burnt face. And then he frowned, too, just like Carson had.

Something clicked.

“Marie!” Carson called loudly. “I need you to come in here lass.”

Marie came forward immediately. “Sir?” she asked softly.

“You’ve checked on Ev- Commander Lorne before,” Carson said. “You know his aura.”

“Yes,” Marie nodded. She glanced at the body, and then did a double take. One hand came to rest on the burnt chest and then she gasped. “This isn’t him.”

David’s sigh of relief was echoed by Carson’s own. “I thought so,” he said. “I didn’t feel… all the studies I’ve made suggest you’ve supposed to feel the death of your soulmate.”

“I’ll take a team out,” John said. “We’ll find them.” He glanced from Carson to David. “All of them.”

David nodded, still looking pale. Carson felt his healer persona take over and he grasped the constructor by the arm. “Come on, laddie. I need to update your records. You should have come immediately when you and Evan found out.”

David looked startled and then guilty. “I’m sorry,” he muttered.

“It’s okay,” Carson said. He turned to Marie. “I need you and Biro to perform an autopsy report on these bodies. Figure out who they really are, if you can.”

“Well, I can already tell something,” Marie said. The council stilled. She looked up, pushing a lock of hair behind her ear. “They have unnaturally high levels of radiation.”

John growled. “Genii.”

-0o0oOo0o0-

John motioned to Jordan, who wrenched open the holding cell with brute strength. Evan’s entire team lay motionless on the ground of the cell and he rushed to the nearest one, Cadman.

Her pulse was steady, if a bit slow, and he breathed out in relief. “I think they’re just drugged,” he told his rescue team. “Jordan, how many can you carry?”

In answer, Jordan picked up Evan and Rivers. John let Cole take Cadman and Andrews take Barraso. He led the way as his team snuck back out the Genii faculty. They passed several dead Genii, killed on their way in.

There was a high pitched noise and John cocked his head. “Go,” he told them. “Get to the gate and the team to the healers.”

“Sir?” Jordan asked.

John’s eyes flashed. “Go.”

Jordan nodded abruptly and began to run. John turned to where Cowen was pointed a gun at him, smiling.

“Leave my men alone,” John warned. “This is between you and me, Cowen.”

“I have no interest in your Atlanteans,” Cowen said. “It’s you I want.”

John began to turn, feeling for his inner bug, only to have the world fade into darkness around him.

-0o0oOo0o0-

The Genii guards brought a human male into the cell next to his. He watched with greedy eyes, but the bars of the small opening between the two cells were not wide enough for him to feed.

Something about this new male seemed… off to his senses. But then he hadn’t fed in too long. He was delirious with hunger.

Time had no meaning for him, stuck in this cell. The guards had stopped attempting to taunt him a long time ago. Now they just ignored him.

He wondered when they would take him out to feed upon this new man. It was almost too easy to get them to talk, that way.

He did not have to wait long. Soon guards were coming to cuff him and bring him to a room where the leader of the Genii, a despicable human named Cowen, was finishing the touches on a recording device.

They brought in the other prisoner and set him in the chair. He was awake now, looking from Cowen with eyes that he recognized as filled with the need for vengeance, to him.

He grinned, feral, aching with hunger.

Cowen was saying something into the camera, talking to the man’s friends, perhaps. He drowned it out, uncaring. Waiting for his chance.

Cowen motioned to the guards and then moved his arm to the prisoner’s chest.

A strange thing happened then as the man’s eyes flashed into a color he recognized as brethren. But he was too hungry to think on it and his feeder made contact with skin beneath cloth.

Humans had a distinct taste, different depending on their age. This other prisoner, he did not taste like any human. No, he tasted more like…

Like one of his own.

The prisoner’s eyes were still gold, but his face was transforming even as he aged and suddenly he felt a connection. A plan whispered between the two of them like it would with any of his brethren.

He detached his claws, but let his hand rest still on the other’s chest, to fool the Genii. The other prisoner took a deep, steadying breath.

He sliced the man’s chains and ducked as the other ripped into the Genii. He rolled and came up in front of another guard, feeding from him greedily. Another attempted to shoot him and he attacked.

He heard a scream and turned to see the other tearing Cowen apart. He grinned, pleased.

And then they were alone. The other had smashed the recording device, which gave him the chance he needed. He approached the other, who tensed.

“I wish only to help you,” he said. “To repay my debt. Your presence has allowed me to escape from here which I have been trapped.”

The other watched him warily, but he knew that the connection between them would allow for the other to see that he was telling the truth.

“My name is John Sheppard,” the other said. “You?”

“Our kind do not have names,” he frowned.

“I am not one of you,” Sheppard snorted. “You look like a Todd to me.”

He let it go, because he was too relieved to care about the semantics. “I can give you back the life I took. That would repay my debt to you.”

Sheppard’s eyes flashed in warning and he suddenly realized that the other would have no trouble killing him, even older as he was. He was impressed.

But the other allowed him to feed back his lost life. He was pleased. He hated owing others debts.

“I won’t kill you,” Sheppard said, once he was again young and prime. His face still held the blue of a kind similar to his. “But just this once.”

He acknowledged the statement with a bow his head. “I shall continue to search this building for others to sate my hunger. Then I will go.”

Sheppard nodded. He did not say anymore as he turned on his heel and left the facility towards, presumably, the portal gate.

He watched the man go with interested eyes. Once Sheppard was out of sight, he began to stalk through the dark halls in search of more prey.


	4. End Notes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This isn't a real chapter. I felt bad leaving the story where I did, so this chapter is basically my story notes for how I'd originally planned to continue the story. It's not a real chapter or written like a story, it's just for the curious few that were invested in this story.

John returns from the Genii outpost and Rodney is relieved. They have rather brutal sex that night and then softer the next morning.

Meanwhile, David tearfully admits that he's been holding back for weeks, but after thinking Evan was dead he can't anymore. He and Evan don't have sex, but they sleep together in the same bed that night and every night after.

Jack and Daniel and a couple more go to one of the Ancient outposts and find ZPMs and various other awesome ordinance. 

Watson and Harriet are fooling around in a lab, trying to get a quickie in, and they hit something. It's the tumor. Harriet explodes first and then Watson. Daniel is hurt badly in the latter explosion, but he's healed. Rodney is furious and restricts access to all unknown labs. They have a funeral for the dead soulmates.

Stackhouse and Markham are on a mission together. Markham almost dies and Stackhouse slips into a coma while Carson and Jennifer work together to heal Markham. When Markham wakes up, he tells John and Rodney: "We were childhood friends, you know. I never even considered letting him go his seperate way. I followed him into the Air Force and into the Stargate program. He's everything to me." Stackhouse wakes up as Markham's talking and John and Rodney leave them alone.

They fly the city closer to the mainland and have a celebration in the newly created Haven. There's also a small ceremony promoting Cadman and Ford and Mehra, as well as the official acceptance of Ronon and Tyre in the Atlantean warriors.

Jack receives a message from Thor. It seems that on Earth, several of their friends have been working hard. Elizabeth, Radek, Jeannie, Cameron, Sam, Teal'c, and even the other Sheppards have started a political movement to change the minds of the world. Things still aren't great for the few mutants left, but they're better.

Alison, Anne, and Alicia have to go through a sex ritual on a planet and in results in misunderstandings being cleared and a better relationship for them.

Carson finishes the retrovirus. He tests it out on the Wraith they name Michael. Michael manages to escape after he learns what he used to be.

Takeshi finally approaches Katie, who's his soulmate. She goes on a date with him and then has a long talk with David. "You're still my best friend." They agree to give each other embarassing speeches at their weddings and go their seperate ways back to their soulmates.

Todd returns and proposes an alliance. He no longer wishes to be completely Wraith—he wants to be more like what John Sheppard is. Carson gives him the retrovirus.

Todd leaves and discovers that the retrovirus turned him human—not into a mutant like Sheppard. He is angry and ends up meeting with Michael. Neither of them are accepted among the other Wraith anymore, but they still feel the need to have a queen even if they can't feed anymore. They kidnap Teyla, but John and others manage to rescue her and destroy Todd and Michael in the process.

They spread the retrovirus, which gives them enough of an advantage to turn the tide of the war. After all, as mostly human the Wraith can't control their ships to the same amount and they can't feed anymore. The Atlanteans join together with a number of Pegasus natives to defeat them once and for all.

Atlantis and Earth begin to open up possible inter-planet alliances. John and Rodney both reconnect with their families and have a wedding on Atlantis with their families and all their other Earth friends as well as their fellow Atlanteans watching. Daniel tells Jack that they have to be next and Jack agrees, but only if Teal'c can be his best man. Daniel agrees, since obviously Sam is his Maid of Honor. Jack teases Daniel about wearing white and Daniel flushes.

Everyone lives happily ever after. 


End file.
